Anime Addventure : Enforced Evolution
by tutcat
Summary: Stories that are from that place that have been saved AvP, Resident Evil , R1/2, El Hazard , and more (all stories up for adoption)


Disclaimer: I do not own Ranma 1/2 or any other crossover characters. They are owned by there respective owners. Not out to make any money or fame on others work.

This is a collection of fic's I was able to save of a web archive that has shut down recently. Some had been edited so my text reader would work better. So original authors and extra stuff was removed from the fic .

On the ones that have not been edited I will be editing them so the original authors will get credited for their parts. Also if you have the parts that I'm missing let me know in a PM will edit them in. Same with other fic's if you have them will post for others to be able to read.

 **Enforced Evolution** **:**

Ranma sat up cautiously, trying to recall how he'd gotten to this sterile lab room with Kodachi, and found stumbling blocks in his memory.

He knew at least several days had passed since his last clear memory near the end of the school year. Between then and now he had flashes of awareness and memory, but he couldn't quite bring them to clarity.

However, he did remember one thing that drove him to check the back of Kodachi's neck. There was a bar code tattooed there and he frowned, reaching back with his hand to try feel if there was one on his neck. He couldn't feel it, but knew it was there. He could remember getting the tattoo.

He checked his ki over, meditating, and found himself...different...but healthy and in one piece. Looking over Kodachi's aura he figured she was the same...different, but healthy and balanced.

This was somehow strange...some flash told him Kodachi should have been dead...and himself as well...

But where the hell were they and what had been done to them...

The station was set on a barely habitable planet far past the far edge of human controlled space. There were, perhaps twelve people that knew about it outside those that lived there.

"Welcome to the Repository gentlemen," Dr. Damon Carthy said as the corporate representatives strode off the docking bridge into the far-flung facility. "This is where we research all of your favorite genetic toys."

"I am aware of what this is," Jared Garrison said amiably. "If you could please just give me an overview of current projects, then perhaps we can get this over with as quickly as possible and we can both get back to our regular tasks."

"Right," the researcher said nervously. "Excuse me, I just get a little jumpy with these things."

"It's just a routine inspection, Carthy," Garrison said, looking about as they walked through the facility. "Believe me when I say that Weyland-Umbrella has no interest in shutting down what has proven to be a very profitable operation. Now take me through the projects, if you will."

"All right," Carthy said. "This way please."

The scraggly professor led the way down into the project centers of the Repository. Garrison paused a moment at the progression.

"Shouldn't we be getting a vaccination at least, Doctor?" the man asked in a not so amiable tone.

"No worry, sir," the doctor said, laughing a bit. "There's no chance of T Virus contamination in this facility. All the samples are kept in the test room, which is miles seperately from here and only unsealed to put in and remove test subjects. Now sir, if you please, I'll show you the first project, the one you're most familiar with."

He directed Garrison's attention to the holding pen and its display monitors showing a small pack of black-shelled warrior drones milling about and snapping at each other.

"I thought you didn't have a queen," Garrison said. "Where did you get all of these?"

"We have access to the DNA of two infected individuals from an incident in Tokyo, Japan in the late 20th century," Carthy said. "A rogue hunter sect decided that humans were too dangerous to their race and attempted to use the aliens to destroy us. The situation was contained and hushed up as a terrorist plot. Most of those involved in containing situation died, but DNA samples of two victims were collected and held in storage until we found the files. We use the DNA to clone the individuals regularly and surgically remove the alien."

"I see," Garrison said nodding. "And is that also how you introduce genetic mutations into these drones?"

"Yes," Carthy said. "We keep the ratio used for the eighth clone in the military experiments that failed a few years ago. We're hoping the extra human DNA will make the drones more malleable and controllable, but it's been an uphill battle. Every so often we get a hold of new DNA sources and we try to cross them into the host DNA in hopes that traits will be passed on to the aliens."

"And what do you do with the hosts?" Garrison asked pointedly.

"We dispose of them," Carthy said. "We're not making the same mistakes as the military. We keep the hosts around for a few days to mark the effects of the DNA on them, we keep them under sedation the whole time and then we incinerate them. The alien DNA allows the clones to recall the memories of the original individuals. If we let them free, they start to 'remember' things and then we have trouble."

"So I understand," Garrison said. "We're still attempting to track down Ripley for study. Or at least a DNA sample."

"It would have to be from the original Ripley," Carthy said. "Now, let me show you another project."

He led them down a further coorridor and stopped at a smaller holding pen, inside of which sat a morose seeming young woman. Carthy pointed toward her as she looked up from her knees toward the cameras she knew were there.

"This is the product of another abandoned project we found in 20th century American files," Carthy said. "Project SIL, I believe. It is a sort of biological weapon."

"This girl," Garrison said, indicating the harmless seeming woman on the screen.

"She has shape-changing capabilities, sir," Carthy said. "The creature's task is to breed and breed and breed and breed, eventually overwhelming anything else that lives on the planet it is sent to. We have the instructions for combining it with human DNA, that was sent as a trap to the scientists in the 1990s. What we are doing now is looking for ways to bond the SIL DNA with the DNA of other hostile species to accomplish the same purpose."

"Which hostile species in specific?" Garrison asked.

"A number," Carthy said. "But the hunter DNA certainly. We have a captive one here somewhere. How does go the war effort?"

"Intermittant," Garrison said. "There was a bit of fluctuation when the hunters realized we were fighting back and geared up for war rather than hunting, but it returned to a stand off rather quickly."

"Well, we're looking to change that," Carthy said. "Now, we only have two more major projects before we get to the incidentals like vaccines and such."

"Good, take me to them," Garrison said, unnerved by the way the sitting girl seemed to be watching him through the cameras.

Another long set of hallways led to a second holding pen.

"We have to keep this one locked almost as heavily as the warrior pen," Carthy said. "The subject possesses some sort of psychokinetic and pyrokinetic abilities."

"Who is that?" Garrison asked.

"Mr. Garrison," Carthy said. "Allow me to introduce you to Eve."

The creature inside was grotesque, a mockery of a human being, and it looked through the walls with a hideous anger and urge to conquer.

"She's a symbiotic organism," Carthy explained. "The host in this case was human. A lab technician that was unlucky. We barely contained her before the symbiote took control."

"What are you doing with her?" Garrison asked.

"Studying her," Carthy said. "Learning how to shield against her powers."

"How do you plan to do that?" Garrison asked.

Carthy raised a finger pointed to a display monitor behind him.

"We're keeping them in the test room I mentioned until we know more of their limits," Carthy said, calling up the image. "Sil and Eve had a brief meeting once, which is the probably the only reason that one or the other didn't kill us all. Sil seemed to be immune to the direct affects of Eve's powers and it gave us a bit of an idea."

"We've reproduced the two warrior hosts again," Carthy said. "With splices of Sil and Eve DNA added to their make up. We hope that they'll be resistant to Eve's psychokinetic abilities and mutation abilities, but, quite frankly, we've been hesitant about introducing the two to Eve. Three of the most hostile and aggressive species all mixed into those two drones, we have no idea what they're capable of."

"Four," Garrison said.

"Excuse me, sir?" Carthy said.

"Four of the most hostile and aggressive species," Garrison explained. To Carthy's uncomprehending glance, the man continued. "They're part human, too. Have you already incinerated the hosts you cloned?"

"Actually," Carthy said. "We plan on introducing them to Eve first. Better to start with the less dangerous set."

"Sir!" a technician said, running up to Carthy with an alarmed expression. "The hosts have woken up."

"Th..that's impossible!" Carthy said. "We keep them constantly under sedation!"

Ranma tried to reach for just how he'd gotten here with Kodachi, but all his memories were muddled. He had barely recalled Kodachi's name. Other words were still coming slowly and with difficulty.

Part of the problem was distraction. Kodachi's smell was intoxicating, merely being in the same room with her made it difficult for Ranma to focus.

That problem, however, was fading as the haze cleared, and he felt the Threats. The entire room was dangerous, somehow, it just smelled of death.

Smelled of his death.

Smelled of Her death.

A low growl elicited from his throat, despite the evidence that Kodachi was alive and couldn't have died. It smelled like she had.

But that was far from everything that was wrong.

Shadowy presences on his mind spoke of things like them, but not like them. Things not possessed of mercy or reason. Things that could feel him and Kodachi and wanted both of them dead.

They had to get out of this place and get back to...

He couldn't remember where they had to get back to.

Almost as soon as he had the thought to wake up Kodachi, finally, the girl snapped awake, and Ranma could feel her consciousness flare awake in his mind. Her emotions passed through the same succession that his had.

She felt different. She felt confused. She desired him. Felt angry at the smell of death in the room. And, finally, she felt the threats about them.

"Door?" Ranma said harshly, the word coming to mind after a bit of thought. The empathic thought desiring exit was much easier to understand.

Kodachi nodded and slipped down to join Ranma in searching the confines of their prison. It took them very little time to zone in on the scent of humans coming in and out, and, from that, easily recognize the door, but that wasn't the best place to go.

"What are they doing?" Garrison asked as Kodachi and Ranma searched about the room.

"Technicians recognized the Japanese word for door being used," Carthy said. "They're looking for a way...damnit!"

In quick succession the monitors watching the hybrids all turned to blank screens, those that left last showed the results of several small explosions before joining the other cameras.

"Security to clone disposal!" Carthy ordered into the comlink. "Quickly! Bring flame units!"

The room was awash with the sound of radios communicating the security patrol's actions culminating in there breaching of the doors.

"This is security team gamma," the officer in charge said. "The hosts have entered the ventilation system."

"The ventilation system!" Carthy said in surprise. "How did they do that?"

"The air ducts here were not designed for SIL's shapechanging abilities," the officer said. "I'm assuming they changed shape to fit in the ducts."

"Go to protocol 6-A," Carthy said. He grimaced and turned to look at Garrison. "Let's head for the main control center, these breakouts can turn desperate fast."

The woman behind Garrison didn't pay too much attention to the description of the hosts' escape. Her eyes were rather focused on another screen.

Eve.

How long had the creature been manifested?

How much longer before its host was killed by the strain?

How desperate was it getting?

What fools had been experimenting with neo-mitochondria again?

She sighed and looked around her, shaking her head as she visually took in her answer.

"Lab technician that got unlucky," the man had said, and that was bull. She had discovered this little collection of neo-mitochondria long enough ago to forge an identity to get herself taken as a bodyguard for an inspection. Obviously, this wasn't the first Eve host.

The woman had been wondering how it was going to be possible to actually destroy Eve and the neo-mitochondria samples without getting caught at it, and soon made into an experiment herself. Now she had something of an answer. With the havoc this break out would cause, she could easily slip in and destroy Eve's manifestation and the samples, and arrange for the blame to fall on those creatures unleashed in the base.

All she had to do was get out and into the halls.

"If you don't mind," Garrison said. "I'd like one of my bodyguards to go with your security staff to guage their performance."

"As long as they don't get in the way," Carthy said.

The woman withheld a smile as Garrison turned around to face his bodyguards.

"Aya," he said, predictably. "See what is happening."

"Yes, sir," she said crisply before turning to leave on her assignment.

The other bodyguard frowned as she left and folded his arms over his chest, as Garrison nodded at him. Garrison turned about a fingered the star-shaped cufflinks of his suit.

Ranma and Kodachi had woken up looking mostly human, but that was already changing as they crawled through the air-ducts, lengthened and compressed, like human serpents driving themselves through the ducts to find a safe place to leave.

Kodachi paused a moment in the dark, metallic tunnels as a brief image came to her. A...memory...of being dragged, sharp claws in her shoulder and she had called for Ranma-sama...but...

She shook her head out and pressed on, feeling that Ranma had found what might have been a good exit further on. She joined him quickly and jumped down out of the duct.

She felt...odd as she dropped and her body reformed nearly completely into the humanoid form she had started with. Her skin was dark and grey like the wall in the shadows behind her, and she couldn't see them, but her eyes were opaque and somewhat luminescent.

"I remembered..." Kodachi said to Ranma.

"Shh," Ranma said, peeking out of their corner to look up and down the coorridor.

Kodachi nodded and focused on trying to dig through her memories again, but a host of conflicting images came down on her.

She was something...weak and soft, but, at the same time cunning, adaptive and vicious. She was travelling through the hive, slick black shell rendering her unseen in the mottled tunnels. She was something scaly and primal, making love endlessly, endlessly.

The images conflicted each other, and more sure pushed the more confused and stressed she became. Her hands, fingernails black like the skin that she bore in another time, reached shakily up to her head.

"How dare they...defend...baby...intruders...I'm...dead...protect...martial..mar..." something clamped down on her progressive degeneration into madness. She felt herself calmly as the conflict eased and she let go of pushing at her memories.

At first she thought it was Ranma, acting in her head, but his presence was still a worried and insistant emotion coming, weakly at the moment, from the outside. She saw him holding her and heard halting words of comfort that she slowly remembered the meaning of.

"I must defend my mate," she whispered to herself finally, looking to Ranma calmly. "I must survive."

The conflicting memories and imperatives were still there, but for the moment they were muted, and a common ground had been paved in at least one small place.

"We'll get out," Ranma told Kodachi confidentally. An assurance that was belied by the nervousness Kodachi felt pouring off of him.

"Of course we will," Kodachi agreed firmly, though her hope of that was no more firm than Ranma's, and she was certain that he could feel it.

The security patrol crept quietly through the halls, covering each other's flanks and watching for any sign of movement.

The halls were built to minimize the corners and places of shadow, the majority of places were well lit and easy to search, and the ceilings were too low to make a surprise attack from above easy to accomplish it.

There were various security devices, as well, that sent their data to the central command and, from there, on to the security patrols.

They had dealt with breakouts before and they would again.

They turned a corner to find an air duct smashed out, and started to scan about the area as their commander contacted the central station.

"We've found their point of exit," the officer said. "Any clue on where they'll go from here? Will they behave like Sil and Eve, and try to escape, or will they act like the aliens and start hunting us?"

"Unknown at this time," Carthy said. "They were just waste material."

"Roger that," the officer said, signing off. "Should have burned them as soon as they took the drones out. Like always." He sighed and looked to his men. "Watch the corners, you know how these things like to play."

"Yes, sir," a soldier said.

"Where's the lady you sent to observe, Garr-?" Carthy's question was cut off as he turned about and saw Garrison and his bodyguards holding guns on the HQ command.

"Somewhere out of our way, I hope," Garrison said.

"What are you doing?" Carthy demanded.

"Destroying this place and all the things you made within it," Garrison said.

"What?" Carthy said questioningly.

"Umbrella has been around for more than four hundred years," Garrison said. "And in that time, you've killed more humans than the aliens and the hunters combined and you ask that question? Farren, can you manipulate the test room from here?"

One of the bodyguards was sitting down at the computer and cycling through computer commands with obvious skill.

"Yes sir," Farren said quickly. "And the reactor core. Thankfully they logged in past most of the security protocols."

"We have a clear path to the ship?" Garrison asked.

"We do," Farren said.

"I don't think security has enough to do yet," Garrison said. "Open the test room and leak the virus into the air."

"The...the virus?!" Carthy gasped. "But, with the things already here?!"

"We're vaccinated against it," Garrison said. "Making a guess about your staff, I'd say most of them aren't. And we won't be staying around long enough to encounter any of the escapees."

Aya paused as she a since of unease. After so many centuries, she recognized it farely easily. Eve was about to try something dangerous. That meant it would be burning out its host soon.

Eve found what she was looking for on the edge of her senses, an active camera. There was electrical power there, power that connected to the power core. She hadn't generated much bio-electricity yet, hoping to conserve her powers until she could escape and, hopefully, find another host that she could subtly build until it was fit to hold her.

If she did this, however, she would have more or less three days to live, assuming she didn't continue to burn energy, which she'd have to do in order to escape. That meant finding a host here and insuring they escaped.

In any case, she had little choice left, soon she wouldn't have near the energy she needed to both escape and catch a new host.

The hybrid drones rose up their heads and turned toward the sound of the door opening on the long tunnel, even as the whispering sound of a released aerial virus passed them, unconcerned.

At the end of that tunnel there were intruders to the hive, and they would have to be dealt with.

Kodachi and Ranma frowned as they found themselves facing a dead end and turned to look back towards the sound of stomping feet heading their way. Soon, half a dozen armed personel turned the corner and had them cornered.

Under the best of circumstances, this was hardly a good thing for the security.

"The test room is opened, the virus is unleashed," Farren said. "I'm starting to work on the core melt..."

The radio crackled to life.

"Central," one of them said. "We have the hosts..."

And that's when broke loose.

Garrison and the majority of his men took cover as the electrical boards exploded outward. Only Farren was unlucky enough to be caught as the monitor glass nearly decapitated him, leave behind a ghastly corpse.

Aya frowned and prepared herself for battle, that had to have been Eve's move.

In the flash of exploding cameras and lights, the six security officers were quickly and easily defeated by Ranma and Kodachi.

Ranma stood over the last of his foes, staring hungrily and hesitating to pass on and follow Kodachi. Ranma's lips peeled back to reveal the sharp canines beneath and a hand, with growing claws, reached outward to claw the face off of the senseless guard.

"Ranma-sama," Kodachi snapped insistantly, and the momentary impulse to kill passed away as Ranma dashed forward to catch up to his mate.

All across the repository, magnetic locks were released.

The hunter looked up as the lights went out in the cage he had been placed in. All over the base he heard machinery shutting down, and then, the distinctive sound of the electro-magnet on his door failing and the door clicking open.

It had finally happened, the humans had lost control of the monsters they were keeping imprisoned here. He had to give them credit, they actually new very well how to contain the standard xenomorphs. However, they'd been experimenting and twisting things as well as bringing in new monsters.

New situations brought new dangers, and the humans' tampering moved faster than their caution. And now everything was free.

He grimaced and approached the door cautiously, well aware that the humans would have guards outside his cell. However, the light they used to see by just vanished. He heard them shuffling about nervously past his door as he slipped out of the door and quickly snapped the guards' necks.

He took a brief moment to examine the weapons they used, but they weren't sized well enough for him to use. Neither the projectile weapons, nor the knives. He growled irritably and said some choice words before slipping cautiously into the coorridors to seek his weapons and gear. Assuming they hadn't shipped them out somewhere else already. He knew enough of human speech to know that this facility studied genetics pretty much exclusively.

Further away, Sil had much more success in scavenging the remains of her guards. Not that she needed the weapons or clothes so much for immediate survival. However, what she needed was a ride out of here, and she was likely to get that a lot easier if they thought she was one of them.

She still needed to find the living quarters and way to change her appearance further however.

And perhaps clothes that weren't covered in blood as well.

Kodachi and Ranma slowly made their way down the corridor, keeping alert for any threats. Ranma kept his now slightly pointed ears, which were adapted for extra sensitivity, keen and ready to provide early warning of any threats to his life or that of his mate.

Ranma's ear twitched ever so slightly, and his eyes narrowed. There was a slight change in low-pitched hum of the bases electrical systems.

"Ranma, what is it?" Kodachi inquired.

"The hum, can't you hear it?"

Kodachi pause blinked her silvered eyes. "What hum?"

"I think it's the electricity. It sounds like its changing... WATCH OUT!"

The lights died and Ranma pulled her backward as the door through which she was stepping sealed with a solid thunk.

Kodachi cried a lively "Eep!" in surprise and turned to glare at Ranma through the darkness using her improved night vision, and rubbed her manhandled alien like tale.

"Thank you, Ranma-sama." Kodachi said softly. "You've saved me once again." She did not remember him doing it, but she somehow knew he had. "But did you have to pull my tale?"

Ranma blinked, trying to adapt his eyes to the total darkness. "Since when have you had a tail?"

Kodachi blinked. "I..." she looked down at the chitinous, spike tipped, vertebrae like prehensile tail that whipped around through the air behind her. "I don't know..."

Ranma sniffed and gritted his teeth. In this proximity without airflow, Kodachi's scent was becoming intoxicating. "We have to get out of here..." he growled. "But I can't even see my hands in front of my face!"

"I can see," Kodachi replied.

"How?" Ranma growled in frustration. "It's pitch black in here."

"I don't know. How did you know the door was closing?"

"I heard it start to his. It was not very loud but you should have heard it..."

"I heard nothing..."

Kodachi paused and looked intently at Ranma. Even her superior vision was dulled in this much darkness, but with focus she was able to make him out in detail, and gaped in shock.

Ranma was not as she remembered him prior to the single-minded blur of their escape. His body had undergone several drastic changes. She could see the faint outline of sub-dermal chitinous armor plates, armored spurs on his knees and elbows, and his fingers and toes ended in retractable claws. With a side glances she saw that his member was semi erect, a fact that fueled the fire in her groin.

Kodachi turned around and shook her head, trying to clear the burning desire, the overwhelming urge to procreate, was slowly eating away at her self-control. She took a deep breath to steady herself, but the air was already saturated with Ranma's musk, and thus was of no help.

"Ranma-sama," she said whispered, "You've changed too..."

Ranma blinked. "I have?"

She nodded. "You have... claws and armor..."

"I do?" Ranma ran a hand down his front and legs, checking for himself.

"I... I do."

"What's happing to us?" Ranma wondered.

"We're changing, my love," Kodachi replied.

Ranma looked in the general direction of her voice with an indignant scoff. "I know that, but WHY?"

"I do not know, but we will find out..."

Ranma paused, and once again shook his head in a futile attempt to clear the growing urge to breed. He paused for a moment and a thin smile came to his face. Slowly he approached her and placed an arm on her shoulder.

"We're changing differently... maybe... maybe we're just adapting differently to what happens... but its makes it hard to work together..."

Kodachi smiled and absently rubbed her face against his hand. What are you planning, my love?"

"I... I'm sure these changes are in our blood... and I'm also sure that if we could copy them some how..."

"How so my Ranma-sama?" Kodachi purred.

"I... I don't know." Ranma admitted, "I thought you'd have an idea..."

Kodachi smiled and pressed herself up against him. "I think know how... maybe if we taste each others blood we could copy them..."

"And how... Do we do that?"

Kodachi smiled and touched her nose to Ranma's. "A kiss, my love... A kiss."

The two grabbed onto each other in a passionate frenzy. Their lips locked and their tongues intertwined, and they gave the others a nip with their sharpened teeth allowing them to taste the highly acidic ting of the others blood, and more importantly, the DNA inside which held the secret to the other current adaptations. Quickly the two began to change form, while locked in their passionate embrace. Ranma eyes slowly began to become the color of quicksilver, while his backbone changed shape and elongated, covering his spine with thick matt black armor while tapering out into a long tail tipped with a razor sharp blade.

Between moans of pleasure and need, Kodachi changed as well. Her ears quickly shifted into points, and while her flesh remained soft and warm to the touch, plates of flexible chitin armor began to grow between her muscles and her skin, giving her a strong sub-dermal carapace. Her fingers opened and closed of their own volition as razor sharp claws pressed out from under shifting flesh, and then retracted back under her dark black finger nails; she stretched her legs and moved her arms as bone and chitin shields shaped over her knee and elbow joints, each capped with short spine like projections that pressed through her skin, making them formidable defensive weapons.

Their bodies also under went many less obvious changes as they two adopted tricks and methods the other has adapted to increase their strength, speed, agility, or even to simply improve the efficiency of basic biological functions.

It took less then a minute for adopt the others improvements, but they did not stop. They were lost in their own instinct. Ranma moved his hand to her breast and began to knee, while moving his has to her groin, to prepare her opening for his shaft.

Kodachi moaned and lifted her leg, to give him easy access, so that they could begin to breed, and to procreate. Stifling a moan filled with pleasure, not just physical but in understand that she was about to fulfill one of her two most basic and primal biological imperatives, she bit into his shoulder. While her teeth did not penetrate deep into his armored flesh, it ripped a large gash into this skin, drawing a steady stream of blood.

As Ranma lined up to spear her and make her truly his mate, the Emergency light kicked in with a vengeance.

Kodachi and Ranma pulled away from each other, shielding their supersensitive eyes from the sudden burst of light.

"GAH! Bright!" Ranma exclaimed.

Kodachi blinked a couple of times and nodded. "Give it a second..." she paused and rubbed her ears. "What is that buzz."

"The power," he replied. "Its back on... but reduced."

"Could it be coming form of secondary generator?" she asked, not sure where that idea had originated.

"Damned if I know..." Ranma took in his first clear look at his mate's new form. The grey cast given to her milky skin by their black blood, the cute points of her ears, her silvered eyes that sparkled in the pale light, the soft flow of her apparently unchanged hair, and the slow swish of her deadly tail gave her an exotic beauty in his eyes. He felt that there was once a time he would have found her new form freakish, even frightening, but now he could not imagine desiring her more.

Ranma closed his eyes and turned away. "They'll probably start looking for us again."

Kodachi nodded. "We must escape."

Their urges quickly began to diminish as the most important of their instincts, the only one that was stronger then the need to procreate came to head. They had to survive.

They spared a glance at on another, and made a silent agreement. They had to escape to safety, but once they did, once they knew they were safe, they would fuck until they collapsed for exhaustion.

"The doors are not opening..." Kodachi muttered to herself.

Ranma walked to the door and attempted to force it, but to no effect. Kodachi quickly added her own significant amount of inhuman strength to the attempt, but it still refused to budge.

Ranma absently rubbed his healed, but still blood covered shoulder.

"KUSO!" he exclaimed, as he pounded the door. His blow did not make a mark, but the scent of burning metal quickly filled their noses.

Ranma pulled back his hand the two and looked on in some surprise as they saw a small mark burnt into the metal where Ranma's hand had been.

Ranma looked at his blood covered palm and pressed it against the door. His highly acidic blood quickly burnt his palm print into the thick, solid steel door.

Ranma grinned at his female. "I have an idea..."

Ranma looked at the side of the door and ripped off the wall paneling. Underneath he saw the hydraulic pistons that were holding it open. Extending his claws, he tore open his palms and grasped them, his blood quickly dissolving the metal.

"Try it now," he stated, as he watched his palms reseal themselves without a mark.

Kodachi walked to the door and gave it a mighty push. It slid open with relatively little resistance.

"I think now would be a good time for us to depart, Ranma-sama..."

"So how much longer is contract up for?" Jenkins asked, just making polite conversation.

"Five months," Nanami said. "Technically."

"That's not so ba..." Jenkins stopped. "What do you mean technically?"

"What I mean is that my contract has had five months left on it for the past three months," Nanami said.

"That sounds like some sort of computer bug," Jenkins said. "Or are you re-upping in small numbers."

"No," Nanami said. "I don't think we're allowed to leave."

"You're getting paranoid," Jenkins said. "It's all the bugs, that's got to be it."

"Yeah, that's it," Nanami said. "Look, we came here to help out with researching the xenomorphs and a couple of other bio-weapons to figure out better ways to shield against them, right?"

"That's right," Jenkins said, gruffly.

Nanami hesitated, feeling nervous at continuing, but at this point she'd already said too much to stop, whatever her instincts told her.

"Well, look," Nanami said. "We're refining the T-Virus and we're breeding mosnters. And I don't know anybody that's left this compound."

"You're forgetting Erickson," Jenkins said. "She left only three weeks ago."

"But she didn't pack anything," Nanami said. "And that new...thing...Eve, doesn't it sort of look like she did, just a little?"

"Nanami, I think you need a break, some relaxation," Jenkins said concernedly, but the feelings running through Nanami's spine implied everything except that he was friendly.

"No," Nanami said. "That's all right, I'll just go and see about getting my contract straightened out."

She started to take a few steps toward the door and the travel sled beyond that would take her to the main compound in moments. The sound of a safety being flipped off and a gun loaded made her freeze.

"We can straighten your contract out here," Jenkins said coldly

Nanami turned around and looked down the barrel of the gun to the face of her co-worker and, now, her killer.

"Are you going to kill me now?" Nanami asked weakly.

"Of course not," Jenkins said with a cruel smile. "That sixth sense of yours is valuable property, even if you don't listen to it well. We're going to add you to the projects."

The bio-hazard warning flashed on moments later and Jenkins turned away from her. She kicked out and pushed the gun away, her mind barely registering the warnings that the T-Virus had been released.

She'd been vaccinated a few days ago, and with the boosters in the room, she'd be fine against even the refined virus. Assuming she got to them quickly enough. At the moment she was more concerned with the man pointing the gun at her.

The pistol fired off three times as the man lost his balance fell to the ground, hard, the sound of glass shattering combining with his pained grunt. Before either could do much else a second warning flashed through the test compound, one that was much more immediately dangerous.

Nanami hadn't needed the second alarm to know that They were coming. She could feel their aggression practically burning across her mind. She was already running for the exit as Jenkins rubbed at his head and tried to shake off the dizziness. The lab tech only paused a moment to head for the vaccines held in the locker near that door.

Unfortunately, she found the locker and its contents shattered by Jenkins' random firing. Remembering Jenkins she looked back and saw that he was already looking for the gun. She saw it behind him, close to her and rushed out to grab it.

Jenkins heard the clattering and turned about to give chase. The screams behind distracted him enough that he tripped over a stool in trying to reach her, and then she was out the door and landing on the travel sled. The sound of rending metal and terrified screams catching up quickly to her.

She jumped on the travel sled and triggered it, holding tight as the conveyance rocketed down the connecting tunnels. Behind her, she could see two lethal forms, growing smaller, chasing after her.

It was fortunate that the test room and facilities, including the sled, had independent power. Otherwise, Nanami would never have gotten away from the xenomorphs that had just been unleashed.

But had she gotten away from the T-Virus?

After three minutes of travel, the sled began to grind to a stop. The second it had made contact with the main deck she leapt off the sled in a full run. She knew that he little timely escape had bought her at most two, maybe three minutes. Xenomorphs were fast and it was estimated that they could cross the distance of the sled track in as little as five minutes at a full run.

She had to get through the main door at to safety. This area, designed for aliens and the T-Virus was separated from the main base by a yard thick pressure door. The door was made out of armor grade carbon steel reinforced with a complex monofilament weave, and then sandwiched in between thick layers of Ceramic poly-laminate armor specially designed to resist acid. The end result was a door that was virtually indestructible and could shed off an alien's acid blood like water off a duck's back.

Nanami cursed loudly as she approached. It was closed! There must have been a power failure in the central complex. When main power failed, every door in the place has its power cut off and automatically locks.

"Damn, damn, DAMN!"

She had a "key", a small portable power cell that would open the door, but it took forever to open and time is what she DID NOT have!

She skid to a halt, and all but threw the cover off the door's "keyhole". From around her neck she pulled her emergency power key and plugged it in. Immediately the motors that lifted the 25 ton door began to grind.

Nanami began to tamp her foot nervously. "Who the hell designs a security door that takes a minute to open. Why the FUCK were these people thinking?" she exclaimed.

Nanami's blood froze as she heard the sound of something impact metal.

She glanced at the door. It was not fully open but she could duck underneath. Good enough.

She yanked her power key and rolled under the gap in the door.

It was saying open.

"Goddamn it!" she cursed, again. She'd forgotten the door stays open an additional 30 seconds to ensure that the person who used the key made it across safely.

She peered under the door and a chill went up her spine at the two approaching black forms.

She stood up and looked the panel next to the door.

She had never felt as much relief in life as she did that moment. Two beautiful, wonderful words that echoed in her soul like the song of angels.

Emergency Door Release.

She pulled open the panel, and pulled down the handle inside, with just enough time to spare. The massive armored door slammed shut with a thunderous crash, and what felt like a less than a second later, she heard two distinct but faint thuds.

She was safe.

She was wrong.

Nanami sighed, and began to walk forward, but she had to catch herself as a wave of vertigo overcame her senses.

She was forced to her knees and almost fell forward, catching herself with her hands, and vomited

After what felt like a good ten minutes, she had emptied the entire contents of her stomach onto the floor and the painful dry heaves had subsided.

"Okay..." she muttered to herself, "Could just be a natural reaction to all that stress. People have been known to puke after running, or after a life or death situation... this is both..."

She paused and forced herself to her feet. The vertigo was gone, but she felt light headed.

"Who the hell am I kidding," she grumbled. "Okay... I was exposed to the T-Virus. The vaccine has Flu like symptoms are a sign that the it is working... of course some strains of the virus have flu like symptoms to show that _they're_ working..."

Nanami pulled out her key and looked at the next door down. "I need to get to medical, they'll have the vaccine... Yeah. That's the plan... get the Vaccine, bur this outfit to make sure its not contaminated, get to an escape pod, and get the hell out of this mad house!"

Nanami smiled and stood up triumphantly. She had her plan, and she knew what she would do. She'd save herself! Not just from the T-virus but from this entire asylum... then she'd come back with the colonial marines and _kick their asses!_

But first, more dry heaves...

Neither Ranma nor Kodachi understood much English. Whatever ability the originals had had was lost in the garbled memories and would only slowly resurface with outside help. As it was, they didn't understand the words being shouted ahead of them.

The pained scream, however, did penetrate their memories.

Memories of huge creatures came to mind. Some had helped them and some had fought them. How long ago was that...?

The flash of a shock baton firing off snapped them out of their revery and the two hybrids slipped forward, holding to the sides of the wall and watching for the enemy to appear around the corner

Guards in armor were shouting across to each other, some professional and some emotional. They were trying to contain a tall and strong looking creature that was valiantly trying to fight back and not succeeding very well.

All the attention of the guards was on this single predator. None of them saw the patches of grey creeping alongside the walls, moving into position around them.

The predator saw them, two fuzzy thermal images moving in his field of vision with a familiar tail trailing behind, and he paused in his efforts to resist as he prepared to face death like a warrior. He didn't know what sort of monster these were, but he recognized the Hard Shell's touch on them.

The guards started to snicker at the predator's sudden change in manner, until someone noted which direction his attention was turned. The guard in question turned nervously away from his fellow guards and saw the hybrids there, staring at him with opaque eyes turned darker to shield the little light of the tunnels.

Two tails streamed by, spiking into armor and using it to slam opponents into walls. Shortly thereafter fists and feet flew and the tails swished around for another strike. It was over in instants, and not a single one of the humans had been killed.

The predator readied himself for battle as the hybrids watched him in a seemingly distant manner, emotion hard to read in those eyes. Then they simply turned away from him, bending over two of the guards and stripping their clothes and armor.

They were chattering at each other in low voices, using human words, but not the same words as the lab techs here used. They were also keeping a close eye on him, though they weren't making any move against him.

The predator growled and bent down to collect a stun baton, and he regarded the two...creatures for a moment and decided against trying to kill the guards. He couldn't fight these at the moment, and they had just saved his life in addition. He gave them a brief nod and then left.

"I don't see much hope for him," Kodachi said faintly as she pulled on the clothes she had just scavenged. Hopefully, the clothes in these dim lights would give them an extra couple of seconds of confusion from their enemy.

"Let's worry about ourselves," Ranma said. Kodachi smiled grimmly, it had been Ranma's idea to rescue the predator anyway.

"Does any of these have a map?" she asked, and returned to scavenging for useful items.

The door to the medical lab slid open with a hiss, and through the walk way stepped STARS operative, Jane Doe. She paused and looked around for a moment.

Her mission was to destroy the T-virus antidote. The plan was simple. Without the antidote, this little Umbrella/ Wayland-Yutani freak show would have a hell of a time retaking their labs.

She grinned. That was if the virus hasn't gotten out, then they were all fucked.

She read over the cabinets carefully and smiled when she came to the right one. She turned around and looked about the room for a moment. She had though she had heard something.

Oh well.

She pulled a shock baton from her side and smashed it into the cabinet. After several strikes she was sure that the virus antidote was destroyed, and tapped her comm link.

"This is Doe. I've destroyed their little cure."

Garrison replied. "Good, now get to the shuttle. We're leaving ASAP."

"No problem"

She turned around, and came face to face with a attractive blond woman, who reached on, grabbed her neck, and snapped it with a quick jerk.

Jane Doe fell to the ground with a thud, as Sil admired her handwork.

She had her way out.

"Jane Doe" entered the launch bay with an unusually sensual swish to her hips.

"You're late," Garrison stated.

"Jane" nodded to her commander. "I'm sorry, sir. I had a delay." She smirked. "It was a killer..."

Nanami sighed in relief as she opened the door to medical. She'd almost taken a wrong turn earlier. If she hadn't heard the slamming and screaming on the other side of the door, she'd have opened the door onto what she assumed were the drones.

"How'd they get in here anyway?" Nanami had asked no one in particular. "They should still be tearing apart the tunnel and the test center trying to get out of there. It couldn't be...the hive..." That last thought sent a shiver through her spine as she considered that all the xenomorphs might now be free.

But, finally, she was in medical. The boosters were in her reach, all she had to do was find them.

There was something immediately wrong with the infirmary as she found it. No one was there, no one on duty to handle any incoming wounded. She didn't immediately worry herself with that, however, she could administer the shot herself. And this way, there was no way for her to infect anybody else...or end up with security again.

She stumbled through the darkened infirmary and found the locker with the T-Virus vaccines, or at least she found what was left of it.

"DAMN IT!" Nanami shouted, slamming the butt of her stolen gun against the locker next to the counter.

The metal door swung open and corpse of a woman stripped to her underwear poured out of it. Nanami shrieked as the woman, her face literally ripped off, fell over her. She stumbled away and fell back onto the examination table, waiting for the corpse to start to rise up and try to have her lunch.

After a few seconds in which the body remained on the ground she allowed herself to relax and leaned backward for a moment to rest. She glanced upward and found the infirmary staff, lying dead atop of the light fixtures.

She screamed again and fell backwards to the floor painfully, rising up clumsily, eyes fixed on the bodies up there, backing slowly away, swivling her eyes and the gun wildly in every direction.

Then the spiked tail whipped out around her and tore the pistol from her hand.

In the extreme of terror, Nanami felt an incredible calm washing over her as she turned around to see the drone that was about to carry her off or kill her.

The calm was shattered when she saw a black-haired humanoid dressed in stolen security gear calmly retrieving the pistol from her tail. Nanami swallowed and backed away from her until bumping into another form behind her.

Another tail whipped out and she was pressed against the wall.

"Why didn't I feel them coming?" Nanami thought to herself. "I should have felt the hostility..."

It didn't take long for her to realize after that, there was no hostility toward her. Caution yes, but not hostility, and, curiously enough, a little concern.

Then it hit her, the cloned hosts, but why had they mutated so much?

"She's ill," the woman said in Japanese. "The body's fighting but it won't last long."

"Smell's wrong," the man agreed.

"I...I have vaccine," Nanami said, reaching clumsily for the Japanese she'd studied as part of connecting with her roots. She would have pantomimed an injection, but the man's tail still had her pressed against the wall.

"You speak Japanese?" the woman said in surprise. "Where are we? What is this place?" She looked at her self and stroked her tail. Nanami felt the anger rising slightly. "What did you do to us?"

The man pushed harder against her to emphasize the point.

Nanami panicked for a moment, but the idea that she was dying anyway came to her, and she calmed down. Death was going to be release, actually, if they killed her, she would be spared a lot of pain. Even if they didn't prevent her becoming a zombie, she'd already be gone by then.

"I tell you what I know," she said. "But you help me."

"How's that?" the man asked.

Nanami sighed and swallowed, gearing herself to ask what she needed of them.

"Tear my head off," she said tightly.

"Excuse me," Ranma said.

"I'm infected with the T-Virus," she said. "One hour, I'll be untreatable. When I die I'll become...something else. A mindless zombie...destroy my head and I'll just be dead."

"You're treatable now?" the woman asked.

"Kodachi, what are you thinking?" the man asked. "She's not like us."

"Perhaps that could change," Kodachi suggested.

"You saw what our blood does now," Ranma said. "That'll melt her face off if we try that."

"I'm thinking of another way, love," Kodachi said.

Kodachi's tail swished in front of the woman and Nanami supposed that it was just her mind playing tricks on her, but it seemed to be changing shape slightly. A sac of some type was growing near the tip which was now leaking something out the tip.

"What are you..?" Nanami's question was cut off as the tail launched forward and struck into her shoulder. She felt something push into her and gasped. Then the tail slipped out of the wound and she felt herself falling as the sounds of the man snapping at Kodachi in confusion faded into the darkness.

She hit the ground in a solid lump and Kodachi bent down to her as Ranma demanded to know what was going on, mentally and verbally. Kodachi smiled as she showed Ranma the fingernails turning black and took in a deep breath of the woman's smell, and felt her presence enter the private channel she had with Ranma.

"Her body is winning now," she said simply.

Nanami groaned to herself as the veil of unconsciousness slowly lifted. Her EVERYTHING hurt. He body was aching all over, but her head was by far the worst. Last time she's had a head ach like this was back in med school, when she had been stupid enough to drink half a bottle of JD.

"Oh my head…"

She rubbed her eyes and took a breath though her nose, and immediately was sent into a gasping fit. The SMELL of everything was just so mind numbingly strong. She could smell the sterile scent of the medical equipment, the faint smell of death off the bodies, the pungent odder of the T-virus vaccine, and the pheromones of the two hybrids.

She opened her eyes and rubbed her head. The pair was standing before her, waiting patiently. She reluctantly sat up and absently rubbed her shoulder, the one that had been stabbed. To her amazement, there was no wound only pale, healthy skin.

She did a experimental stretch and took in another breath. The pain in her body was quickly fading as she moved, but her head still ached. She felt good. No, she felt better than good, she felt great. She felt strong, and healthy, more so then she had ever before.

And that is what scared her.

She stretched out her hands an looked at them. The appeared normal except for that fact that her finger nails were jet black.

Slowly, she turned to Kodachi, and through gritted teeth she growled. "What the HELL did you do to me?!"

"I saved your life," Kodachi replied.

"What?" Nanami exclaimed. "What the hell are you talking about."

"I made it so your body could defeat the virus."

Nanami growled. It was a deep, feral, inhuman growl. One that frightened her. "I can tell that but WHAT did you do?!"

"I made you one of us."

"So," Nanami hissed, "You turned me into some freakish half alien mutant?!"

Kodachi blinked. "Would you have rather died?"

Nanami blinked, "Not a chance! I didn't really want to die, but…"

"But what? You're alive, we cured you."

"You should have asked me!" She exclaimed, bringing her fist down onto a metal table, denting it.

Ranma stepped forward but Kodachi's tail pressed against his chest.

Nanami glared at her. "What the hell gave you the right to do this to me without my permission!?" she demanded "I would have said yes, but it should have been MY choice, not YOURS!"

"What gave you the right to do it to US?" Ranma demanded.

"That's different!" Nanami screamed.

Kodachi scowled. "How so?"

Nanami sighed and leaned back. "You were dead."

"What?!"

She sighed and looked at them. "You've been dead for over four hundred years. You're clones… listen, what these sons of bitches have been doing to you and to so many other innocent people is wrong, and I'll tell you all about it… once were out of here."

Ranma nodded. "Alright, but you'll tell us everything."

Nanami nodded, "Everything... How long was I out?"

Kodachi looked at the clock. "About a half hour."

"Why did you wait?" she asked. She would have tried using her 6th sense but her headache seemed to have it on the fritz. She felt strange… like there was some other presence connected to her mind. She'd sort that out later.

"We didn't want anything to happen to you," Ranma stated.

"Besides," Kodachi added, "Chances are you know the way to get out of here."

Nanami nodded. "Only way out is the escape shuttles in the landing bay…"

"Do you know the way?"

"Yes."

"Lead the way."

The facility was well staffed with security, considering what they guarded, it had to be. Much of those security personel were still roving through the halls and trying to get a hold of some kind of leadership.

They had the means to open and close the gates, and they had the weapons necessary to deal with the drones, should they encounter any. With some of the other creatures, they weren't so confident, but they had to give it a shot. They were professionals, after all.

None of them, however, was sufficiently defended against the worst threat now within the station. Only people that regularly worked with the T-Virus usually kept vaccinated, and without the vaccination ahead of time, it had it's normal swift conclusion.

So, when one of the security personel slipped in a small puddle of vomit and cut himself in the fall, everything started to go down hill.

By the time Nanami was leading the hybrids away, that first infected team had fallen to the floor, unable to move further. A few minutes later, they were walking again, but without the weapons.

Outside the compound, in the hazardous atmosphere, two large figures crawled out of the ripped and torn hole they had gouged out of the side of the tunnel connecting the main compound and the test facility.

Soon, they were crawling across the roof tops, seeking a way in and they found it when the STARs team left, neglecting to close the docking bay. The drones slipped in behind the ship and strode into the halls until they reached their first pressure door.

Clawing and smashing at the pressure door was making slow progress, until, that is, one of the pair gripped the power-key housing and instinctively channelled a burst of bio-energy to answer the slight static they felt.

The doors rolled open and the drones poured through, now aware of just how to deal with the doors.

Aya was on the right track, She could tell by the bodies she was finding along the path of her hunt. Eve had never bothered to clean up after herself.

Soon, she would be right on top of Eve, and the parasite wouldn't realize it until it was too late.

The three genetic hybrids quickly split up once they reached the crew quarters. Nanami had told them it was standard procedure for the quarters and other parts of the residential section to receive little security attention during an emergency. They were far from the labs, and separated by a half a kilometer and many heavy security doors. Besides, on their own they could loot the place faster.

While Kodachi had been reluctant to fleece the place, Ranma had quickly seen the wisdom. This way they would not have just the clothes on their back. It could help them be more prepared, and if they made it back to civilization they could blend in better if they had something to sell. Besides, it gave Nanami a chance to retrieve her beloved laptop and to screw over the people who ran this place.

As such, Nanami giggled to herself like a school girl as she ransacked Carthy's room. Sure the door had been locked, but these interior doors were turning out to be exceptionally… fragile.

She'd already stolen his personal laptop, who knew what incriminating evidence was on, it, and she'd already filched his class ring and a 15,000 dollar watch, likely a gift from The Company for being the lowest live form available for rent in a place like this.

She was quickly sorting through his dresser for anything of values before she moved on. First drawer, socks and underpants; second drawer, Shirts; third, pants; and the fourth, locked...

She smirked and gave the last drawer a mighty yank, tearing it out of the chest of drawers like it was nothing. Inside the drawer was a pile of computer discs, an M41c pulse carbine, a small black box, and a T-Virus vaccination.

"You're got to be kidding me…" she muttered as she picked up the anti-T-virus booster shot. Looking at the plastic encased antidote shook her head. "Well, I could have used YOU twenty minutes ago. Not that it matters now…"

This really sucked. Just like God, Kamisama, Buddha, Allah, Krishna, Cthulhu or what ever deity that runs this sick universe to pull this kind of joke.

With a sigh, she pocketed it. A companies like Wayland-Yatani-Umbrella did not let little jems like this go into the public sector. It was bad for profits. It would be a pleasure to donate this little honey and hopefully render the T-virus worthless to their bio-weapons department.

She also pocketed the discs. Knowing that prick Carthy, they were likely corporate blackmail, the kind of shit the authorities would just eat up like candy. Vindication was SOOOOOO sweet.

Nanami quickly grabbed the rifle, and the magazines. She knew enough about firearms to identify it as the carbine version of the M41a pulse rifle, the a standing favorite of the United Systems Colonial Marine Corps. More effective against bugs than a can or raid! She'd just need a few minutes to figure it out… where the safety and selector switch were, how to eject the magazine, and she'd be ready to rock.

In curiosity she reached down and opened the box. It was full of jewelry. Lockets, rings, watches, and all other personal items. She inquisitively reached down and removed one of the rings. It was too small for a man, feminine even. It seemed familiar.

She looked over the ring, and saw something that looked like writing on the inside.

"Donald and Jenna Forever," she read.

The blood in her veins began to boil, as if it had become some highly virulent concentrated acid.

Oh wait, it already was.

Reguardless, Nanami was pretty pissed off. She knew where she recognized the ring from. It was Erickson's wedding ring… every item in this box belong to someone who had been part of the base staff and murdered in order to keep this place's existence a secret. It was a box of stolen lives.

Nanami placed the ring back into the box and then into her bag. She'd try and send these back to the loved ones of the fallen with an explanation of what happened them. Or she could sell them. She wanted to do the right thing, but one does have to survive.

She zipped up her duffle and turned to the door. Time to leave.

Nanami walked to the door, just as a T-virus zombie rounded the corner

"Ah shit…"

Nanami gasped and stepped backwards in horror. The T-Virus was loose in the compound, and there was a zombie blocking the door. Looks like the Virus was going to her one way or another.

She leveled the rifle and pulled the trigger.

Nothing. Worth a try though

"Who'd leave a rifle loaded and off safe anyway…" she muttered. "Real bright Jinnai, oh REALLY bright…"

The Zombie began to stagger towards her, and she stepped back. There was no way she was getting past this thing. While the T-virus turned it victims into mindless zombies, it also made them stronger than most humans. Only the best fighters could take one out in hand to hand combat, and with her painfully rudimentary course in hand to hand combat, she was no match…

Nanami paused. Maybe the old Nanami wasn't a match. but she wasn't human anymore, was she? A standard Xenomorphic hybrid was at least twice and strong and as fast as a human, while in testing Sil was able to readily dismember a drone.

A gin came to her face. That stronger than a human bit didn't appy to her. She wasn't human, she was a _superhuman_

Nanami took a defensive stance and hefted her rifle. If she couldn't get the damn thing to work, she's brain the bastard with the butt.

"Come on ugly, Nanami's got a present for you!"

The Zombie moaned and continued to shuffle toward her. Nanami waited until the undead creature was almost upon her and with an excited battle cry, gave the weapon a mighty swing.

The butt of the rifle struck the zombie's head with a wet snap, its head being jerked to an unnatural angle and its right temple all but imploded by the force of the strike. The creature was not stopped though, and grappled the red headed girl.

With a grunt she grabbed the things arms and pull them off of her. It was no small effort but as she suspected, she far exceeded the zombie's strength.

"Now STAY DEAD!" She cried as she bent the two limbs with all her strength, shattering them both.

She kicked the zombie away. It flew out of the door way, and slammed against the wall. It struggled to right its self with its broken limbs, but it was unable. Nanami glanced around the room for a moment. This rifle was nice, but not suited as a club.

She glanced around for a moment, looking for a more suited blunt object, and grinned as she spotted a baseball bat sticking out from under the bed. She grabbed the aluminum club and gave it a test swing.

Nice…

With a vindictive smile on her face, she walked to the flailing undead guard and smacked the zombie's head clear off. The decapitated head flew a good 30 feet through the air until it slammed into a door with a loud and bloody splat.

"Ah ha! Nanami Jinnai, one. Undead, ZERO!" she cried, "And the crowd goes WILD!"

She laughed for a moment and calmed down. "Okay," she said to herself. "Now that's down time to get the hell out of here!"

Kodachi sniffed about curiously, wondering why this part of this place was so empty. It was fairly evident that most of the people had left at some point, but where too? And while there was some death, the scents of blood and destruction were few and far between in this area so far.

She noted it for later concern. For now, it seemed that most everybody had left this place, and that left her free to pick through the odds and ends for items that might later be useful.

"Ooo, this is a lovely shade green," she said cheerfully, half-pretending that she was shopping in some department store, and not poking around the possessions of a woman that was likely lying dead somewhere.

And trying to ignore what their new pack member had said. Kodachi Kuno, that was the name, was long dead, and she was just a clone.

Imprisonment, mutation and battle was much easier to deal with, in some ways. Not being herself, the person she vaguely and partially remembered. That was much harder. And so she set herself out a suitcase and began to pack dresses and jewelry within.

Once, she came across a suit of tight-fighting leather that sort of made her twitch, though she couldn't remember why. In any case, she left the majority of the outfit alone, disliking it, but the whip that went along with it, that went into her pack. It likely wouldn't be much use compared to her natural weapons, but a sense of nostalgia drove her to grab it.

Ranma had his own pack, but he didn't pay much attention to the clothes, he grabbed cred sticks, having been shown what they looked like by Nanami. He grabbed food stuffs that would last a long time. He grabbed utensils and tools.

Anything that would be useful while travelling, he slipped into the pack.

There was only one exception he made to practicallity over sentiment. It seemed to be a good sword, though why it was in this place he couldn't phantom a guess. He couldn't even guess why it was he wanted to take it.

The sword would be ruined the first time he struck a drone with acid blood like his. His own natural weapons were just as deadly, if not deadlier. Still, he swung the katana around behind his back and began to seek out the others.

Which was about when both felt the emotions surrounding Nanami's encounter.

The habitation did not have the same security precautions that the rest of the compound did, no security doors isolated portions of it from other portions. Instead, it was isolated from the rest of the compound as a whole. Perhaps the isolation was not so severe as the isolation the test facility had from the holding facility, but it was still isolated.

It was easy for Ranma and Kodachi to know which direction Nanami was in, and they swiftly dropped their morbid acquisitions to head for her. Not only was she their way out of this hell hole, but she was one of them now, and instinct demanded they protect each other.

As they neared her, and each other, they began to smell what the threat was. They smelled them long before they saw one. For a moment, the sight of a dead body lumbering towards them made them hesitate. Fragments of ghost tales and brushes with the supernatural made them shiver as the bio-chemical zombies stalked toward them, moaning dumbly.

There were not many, however, they remembered what Nanami's instructions had been. Also, the other two of their species were through these creatures, and they had to get past.

Once it was determined they had to go through, none of the hybrids had much trouble with the shambling undead, and they were soon re-united.

"This is what you were mentioning before," Kodachi noted grimmly as they met Nanami again, soon after a zombie had lost its head to her tail.

"Did you make this stuff?" Ranma asked Nanami sharply.

"They created it around four hundred years ago," Nanami said. "When I was hired on to this place, they implied they were working on a cure for it. We actually made a few." She took a sample out of her pocket and smiled. "And when this gets to the public, that's all she wrote for the T-Virus, hopefully."

"Let us just leave here, now," Kodachi insisted. "These are not the only creatures we shall have to face if we remain long."

"It's this way," Nanami said, getting them to follow her.

Nanami glanced to Kodachi and Ranma as she checked over the M41c. "Hold on."

She pulled one of the magazines out of her bag and placed it inside the weapon. She pulled the knob on the top weapon labeled "charge" back, and there was the faint sound of the mechanism as the round was chambered.

She glanced at the side of the gun. Seemed to be rudimentary. There was a little button next to the magazine with a little tag that said release, and a switch that said "Safe", "Single", "Burst", and "Auto".

"Nanami," Ranma asked coolly, "Where did you get that weapon?"

"Found it stashed in a room, why?"

Ranma just did not like guns for some reason. They rubbed him the wrong way. He like the idea of hand to hand combat. Standing at range while you just blew your enemy away… it felt wrong somehow.

All three turned as a groaning zombie turned the corner and headed toward them. As the other positioned to attack, Nanami lifted her weapon and fired off a burst. The three explosive tipped exploded in its abdomen sending it to the ground in a bloody heap. Except for some twitching, it did not move.

Ranma glanced at the weapon… bad feelings or no, it was a bloody effective little toy.

"Do you have any idea where you can get more of those?" Ranma asked.

Nanami thought for a moment. "Actually, yes. There's an emergency weapons locker down the hall. You grab the stuff you gathered and meet me there."

They nodded and walked off.

"Ranma-sama," Kodachi stated coolly. "Are you sure about this?"

He shook his head. "No, but I have a feeling they might come in handy."

Kodachi nodded. "I think you're right."

"Lets do this quick. I do not trust her on her own."

Kodachi blinked. "You don't trust her?"

Ranma shook his head. "She is not a fighter. I don't trust her not to go get herself killed."

Nanami grinned as she arrived in front of the weapons cabinet. Calling it a cabinet was a bit of a misnomer. It was more in the line of a wall safe. Only the security personnel and some of the head researchers had the keys, but she did receive a little training in firearms… while she didn't get it in anything fancy like the Pulse Rifle she had, she did get rudimentary training in weapons like pistols, shotguns, and even flamers. Just the kind of stuff that would be the locker.

She looked at it for a moment. She doubted that even with her enhanced strength she should just rip it out of the wall, and shooting it or using her blood might set off the ammo…

"How to open it… Hmmm… Aha!"

She paused for a moment and grinned. She walked to one of the security zombies, took his wallet, and ran his keycard through the lock. The lock requested a retinal scan, easily provided by lifting the bodies decapitated head. With a loud beep the locker opened.

Inside was a small treasure trove of weapons. She pulled out a duffle bag and quickly put everything inside. She only paused to take a look at the instructional placard on the inside of the door.

"Hmmm… might be worth taking…" she muttered.

She tried to pry it off, but it was riveted to the inside of the door at its for edges.

Nanami grinned and bit her finger hard enough to draw blood. She pressed it against the for rivets and the placard fell to the ground, its four edges melted but the instructions intact.

She sucked on her finger, and reflected. She had though blood had tasted bad before, with that icky irony taste but now it still had that irony taste but tasted like bad vinegar ontop.

Nanami pulled her finger from her mouth and looked at it. Not even a mark.

With a shrug, she picked up the instructions and read over them. Gun safety regulations… instructions on how to load and fire the various weapons… good to know.

She crammed it into her bag and smiled as she saw Ranma and Kodachi coming back with their own hauls.

"Okay!" she exclaimed in a perky voice. "Lets get the HELL out of here!"

Ranma nodded. "Finally… where is this launch bay anyway?"

Nanami pointed down a very long hall way. "Oh, just down there… about half a kilometer or so, past three heavy security doors, take a left at the end, and past the security check point which really shouldn't be much of a problem considering… easy as Pi…"

"Famous last words," Kodachi deadpanned.

"Don't jinx it!" Nanami exclaimed as they started toward their way out...

"Only a few more turns after this security door and..." Nanami paused as she started to stretch out her powerkey.

Behind the door, hostility and aggression incarnate lay waiting. It wasn't so intense as it was the first time she'd felt that particular sensation, but that didn't calm her down any. She still knew what was behind the security door, and she couldn't comprehend how it got there.

What was more, this time, she could do more than just feel it's intentions. She could feel it, as if her mind was working on nearly the same channel as the hive was. And It could feel her.

She stepped slowly back away from the door, Ranma and Kodachi already preparing for a fight as they felt the presence past the door along with the shadow of hostility they felt through their link with Nanami.

"Do we have to go through..."

"Yes," Nanami said. "I don't know how it got in there, this door is the only way in. The doors automatically close after sometime, but a drone couldn't have opened a door without breaking it..."

Then the door began to swing open as the crackle of bio-electricity revealed a brief glimpse of shiny, black carapace beyond.

None of the three were professionals. Ranma, despite his assertion that he didn't trust Nanami to not get herself killed, was really no better than her, save that he could protect himself better, and would probably take more enemies with him.

The original Ranma had been unprofessional as well, which was why he'd ended up dying on a hospital bed as a chestburster tore out of him. He'd been talented, but he hadn't been professional. Nor were the assorted martial artists that went into the hell with him.

Of the lot, only Kodachi and Ranma had returned alive, Ranma dragging Kodachi with him, but they'd died soon afterward. Leaving only their bodies and DNA behind to research. As for the others, there had been a massive explosion of some kind of green light that had torn the hive from inside out, but nothing else was ever seen of them.

Their next of kin, children, siblings and spouses, were given a speech about heroism and such, fed some story about terrorists and then they were shuffled off to be forgotten.

And, as the drone appeared, those were the memories that suddenly locked into clarity around Kodachi and Ranma. Fighting in the hive, being swarmed by things that did not have the same vital points as a human being, being dragged off one by one. Escaping, and finally dying as another of the things birthed to life out of their chest.

They gasped, hands reaching for a phantom pain there as the drone leaped forward.

And Nanami, her eyes just as glazed over as she contemplated a death like her brother's, when the fool had decided to try and make a bundle on xenomorph biology, was the one that acted. It wasn't necessarily the most well-thought out action considering how close the drone was by the time she did act, but it did end the situation quickly.

The carbine in her hand fired in a full spray, HEAP rounds pumping into the mutated drone and exploding with a shower of caustic acid that washed over Nanami. Her scream of pain, both mental and physical, snapped Ranma and Kodachi out of their torpor and they moved.

Kodachi grabbed the acid-soaked bag of ordanance from Nanami's back and tossed it around the corner they had just previously taken while Ranma pulled Nanami herself away from the rain of acid blood, grabbing a bottle of water to pour over Nanami's face.

If Nanami were still human she would have been dead in instants after the acid hit. As it was, the neo-mitochondria in her body reacted, activating some of the xenomorph DNA in her body. The pain was still intense, but the deadliness of the acid was defeated as Nanami's skin changed, became more slick, thicker.

The acid easily poured off Nanami's new flesh as the water pushed at it, but it still burned like hell itself. She scratched at her face until Ranma grabbed her hands and held them away from her.

The sound of several explosions in the hallway behind them announced the fact that the acid had reached the ammunition she'd been carrying. Kodachi winced and shielded her eyes from the sudden light but quickly glanced past the corner after the explosions died down to see that the path remained unblocked, the structure having held, though there were scores and blast marks everywhere.

She turned back to where Ranma was holding the writhing Nanami and trying to keep her from further injuring herself. She gestured with her tail, head and hand back to the passageway, somewhat imperically.

"There was a bathroom with a shower several turns ago," Kodachi said.

Ranma nodded and soon they were carrying Nanami away.

It was several minutes under the shower before Nanami's new development and her regenerative abilities had driven the majority of the pain away and she sat in the shower under the water staring at her newly slick skin and the longer claws, not nails any more, that she had nearly clawed her face off with.

"I...I..."

She was like them now, the xenomorphs.

Nanami shivered for a moment, and Ranma and Kodachi hesitated to drag her away from the realization.

Kodachi frowned as she looked at Nanami. She could feel the other girls' distress, it echoed through their link.

Hesitantly, she took a step toward the redhead. "Nanami?"

Nanami turned to the hybrid and sneered at her. "Get away from me!"

Kodachi stepped back. "What… what's wrong."

"I was wrong before!" Nanami sneered. "I would have rather DIED. At least then I would have ended my life as a HUMAN BEING and not some… some… ALIEN FREAK!"

Kodachi shook her head. "You wouldn't have wanted to die…"

Nanami glared at her. "Don't pretend you know what I'd want."

"I know what its like to die," Kodachi said in a soft, sad voice. "You… wouldn't have wanted that."

Nanami blinked. "What?!"

Kodachi closed her eyes. "I… I remembered my death… it was so frightening… monsters and the chaos… the pain… of the pain… then it was cold, dark… empty…"

"Wha…?"

Kodachi slowly began to change from. The armor plates visible under her skin softened and faded, her ears rounded, her tail slowly withdrew, and her clawed digits softened into normal fingernails. Kodachi opened her now human eyes and looked into Nanami's.

"I wonder… would dieing of the T-virus be any different? Do you really even die, or is your mind trapped inside the zombie, a passenger doomed to slowly go mad?"

Nanami sighed. "Kodachi?"

"Yes?"

"How did you turn back?"

Kodachi blinked and looked at her hands. "I'm… not sure. I just thought back to how I was before and I changed."

She closed her eyes and morphed back into her hybrid form.

Nanami bit her lip and began to concentrate. "Human… human… human…

Nothing happened.

"Great! All I wanted to do was go back to being human and it doesn't even work. What the hell… am I broken or something. See yourself as human you say… that full of…"

Nanami's skin and hands shifted back to normal.

She blinked. "Okay, maybe I was wrong about that… Where's Ranma anyways?"

Kodachi pointed her tail at the door.

"Standing guard."

Nanami nodded. "I see… where are my things?"

"Well," Kodachi began, "The weapons you took exploded, but that rifle was apparently acid proof. I put it under the sink while you were rinsing off and only the pain was melted."

"How many bullets?"

"The number on the side says 23…"

She sighed. "Oh boy… my coat?"

Kodachi looked toward a pile of while cloth at the side.

Nanami stood up and went over to fish through the pockets.

"Well, my keys melted, but the other magazine is still intact and T-Virus vaccine was in glass do it just needs to be washed off… my other bags?"

"Your body shielded them."

Nanami scoffed. "Lucky me."

She walked over to the sink to retrieve her weapon and blinked as she saw herself in the mirrior.

He skin was still red and enflamed and her eyes were puffy, but what really caught her attention was her top. It her shirt was dripping wet and had been heavily splattered with acid. Between the massive holes in the top, her wrecked bra, and the fact that it was make out of thin white fabric it did absolutely nothing to preserve her modesty.

"Say, Kodachi, did you bring my bag in?"

"Yes?"

"Grab me a new shirt, could ya?"

Carthy turned the corner to his room, hearing the moan of zombies running through the coorridors about him. He'd already found some abandoned weapons to use, but what he really wanted was the vial of T-Virus antidote in his personal stash.

The zombies probably meant that the virus had shifted away from an aerosol vector, so the air was probably safe. But he didn't want to escape only to die later simply because he'd gotten scratched by a zombie that got too close.

The first thing he saw, leading to his room, was the corpse with the shattered head. He hesitated, noticing the symptoms of the T-virus in what remained of the corpse. However, if someone had killed it, then that meant that they'd been in his room.

Carthy's eyes widened and he quickly ducked into his room and found it a complete mess. It was quickly obvious that whoever had been here had taken everything, including his emergency package.

He grimaced and slammed the pistol in his hand against the wall.

"Damn it," he cursed. "I wonder if this is one of Garrison's little surprises, too."

The moaning grew louder and then, and Carthy had no time to stay before the zombies found him.

He snarled as he grabbed a couple of clips from the bedside table and then started running. There were some escape shuttles in the launch bay - if he could get there fast enough, he could use the antidote cache hidden there (he took a moment to bless the almost paranoid level of emergency planning), and he'd be fine. He'd evacuate, then figure out what he'd say in his report... they wouldn't be pleased, to say the least.

Still, the clear betrayal of Garrison could hardly be blamed on him, so he'd do just fine. Better than fine, in fact...

He stopped at an unmarked panel, hit a hidden switch, then grabbed the small fiberglass bag inside, along with a cube from a socket on the wall of the compartment. With the information on these cubes, and the recording of the security cameras, he'd have all the information he'd need to stay on top of the game.

Carthy then took off running again, following the signs to the launch bay. After a while he was coughing and almost staggering, and he slowed down to a walk. He'd catch his breath, then speed up again. He gained some time on the zombies, and hopefully the hybrids would - wait!

He stopped and listened. Voices! From the side passage he could hear a voice - male, young - maybe one of the guards?

"... are ... okay... there?"

He couldn't quite make out what they were saying, but a guard meant - protection! On the other hand, if it was one of Garrison's thugs, he'd be in real trouble...

Carthy reasoned sharply, Garrison's ship was gone, and his group of raiders with it, he'd seen the launch through a monitor connected to one of the outside cameras. The only things capable of speaking Japanese, or any other human language, in this deathtrap, as it now was, were, of course, human, almost certainly long term members of the company team on site. That meant safety.

He turned a corner, sighing in relief, then he looked to see who was talking.

It wasn't human.

Partially human, yes, but not totally. The tail that curled behind him was more than enough testament to that, even without the otherworldly look to the man's face and body. Or those opaque eyes that were now turning towards him.

"Hey, it's another survivor," the man said. "He smells clean."

And then Carthy realized what he was talking to, one of the clones. It had remembered most of its speech, apparently and was probably addressing the female. He was more right than he knew until a couple of moments later, when Nanami walked out behind the female clone, also mutated somewhat.

Carthy eyed the human with the two hybrids and immediately recognized her from her dossier.

Doctor Nanami Jinnai. Genetics researcher. Xenobiology specialist. Brother killed ten years ago in a xenomorph incident. Seeking vengeance on the xenomorphs. Known Contacts: past romantic relationship with Makoto Mizuhara, industrial terrorist responsible for the theft of prototype combat-class synthetic. Notes: Possesses untapped psionic capabilities currently manifesting as a sort of sixth sense. Instructions: Close watch. No outside contact. Subject should not realize she is imprisoned if at all possible. Upon discovery, incarcerate as experimental material.

And she was carrying his M41a carbine. Obviously she'd been the one that ransacked his room.

"Carthy," Nanami said.

"Well, Jinnai," Carthy said. "Did you and your spying boyfriend plan this little event with Garrison? If so, I'm happy to say that your STARS allies have already left you high and dry."

"Spying..." Nanami snapped. "What are you talking about? I came here to study and find a way to destroy these fucking parasites. I didn't come to be a lab rat."

The hybrids looked to each other in caution, not understanding the English but recognizing the hostility waving off Nanami. Ranma moved to try and calm down Nanami, but she felt the intention even as his hand reached out and turned to face him.

"He's the head of operations around here," Nanami said. "He's the one that's had you recreated and eliminated I don't know how many times. He's responsible for everything, and you can bet that he wouldn't let us take that antivirus sample to the public."

"The..." Carthy's eyes snapped wide as he remembered the booster shot from his room, but surely Nanami would have used it. Unless, of course, she'd used a booster from one of the other labs.

"Let's handle this later," Ranma said. "We gotta get..."

Carthy growled as he tossed out the hand with the pistol and, in a fit of suicidal rage, he pressed the trigger, repeatedly sending bullet after bullet into Nanami. The first bullet hit with a burst of red blood, as did the second. The third was sent off course as he lost control of the kick, it bounched off her skull and sent her ringing backwards, head swirling, even as several more bullets struck her chest, but failed to break the skin.

Carthy got a brief sense of satisfaction from the shocked expression on Nanami's face as she was sent reeling to the floor, but then he saw the smoke raising up from where Nanami's blood had dropped to the ground. He had just enough time to see her slowly rising, the flow of blood from her wounds lessening as they closed, before Ranma's tail had disarmed him and slammed him against the wall.

A deep, feral growl resonated from Nanami's throat as she turned to Carthy.

Nanami looked down at herself and sneered. While her wounds had already closed, the acid from her blood had eaten through the fabric he shirt leaving large spaces of uncovered skin leaving her modesty in a precarious state at best

"Damn it," she growled, "This was my favorite shirt."

"What are you?!" Carthy exclaimed.

Nanami's eyes narrowed, and she pressed her finger into the blood that covered her skin.

She slowly walked toward Carthy, a nasty smile on her face, and a suggestive swing to he hips.

Carthy tried to turn away but Ranma threw him back against the wall.

Nanami smirked and looked him in the eyes.

"What am I good, doctors?"

She wiped her blood covered finger across his face. Carthy screamed in agony as her blood burnt into the flesh of his cheek.

She sneered and lifted him by the neck with her other hand.

"You should know what I am!" she roared. "You and your projects made me like this."

"How did this happen… what turned you into a hybrid!?"

Nanami laughed. "I see, ever the freak show major domo… fine, I'll tell you."

She sneered, "I escaped the labs, but was infected with the T-virus. The boosters, were all destroyed and I was dieing, but these two came across me, and rather than let me die, they transformed me into one of them."

"How… how is that possible."

"I do not know," Nanami stated, "But once we're gone and your long dead, I'll make sure to poke at myself a bit and see how I tick."

"You sold your humanity to survive and now your going to kill me!" Crathy sneered, "You're no less a monster now than the creatures that killed your brother."

Nanami's eyes narrowed. "That may but I am still far more human than you ever could aspire. I have more contempt for you than I do any freak on this base… and besides, I feel great."

Carthy blinked. "What?"

"I have never felt so healthy in my life. I'm far stronger, far faster, and considering the nature of these modification I am likely biologically immortal. I consider it amusing that while the Company has invested billions in finding a secret to eternal youth, something your rich clients would pay out the ass for, it just zips by you in a pitiful attempt to create the better bug. Just think how rich you could have been if you were only not such an incompetent close minded piece of subhuman garbage."

"Nanami...," Kodachi growled.

"Don't worry," Nanami cut in. "I'm just giving this subhuman something to lament about in the short span of time between now and his painful death."

Kodachi smiled. "Can I kill him?"

Nanami shook her head. "No."

"No one is killing nobody!" Ranma added.

Nanami smiled at the male of her species. "Don't worry. I'm not going to kill him."

Nanami let Carthy go, who visibly relaxed.

The man sighed. "Thank god…"

A Savage smiled came to her face, and she struck at him. She kicked his legs out from under him, sending the researcher to his knees, and struck him in the lower back with a wet snap.

"ARGH! I can't feel my legs!"

"Nanami!" Ranma exclaimed.

"Oh, I'm just going to leave him for his pets."

"Please… no…." he muttered.

Nanami began to rummage through his pockets and glanced at him. "I found your boc of stolen lives. I want you to remember the faces of all the people you killed who bagged you just that before you die. You earned this."

She paused, and stood up after looking through his pockets. She walked over to the discarded pistol, and lifted it up. Carefully she removed the magazine and took every bullet, leaving only the one round in the chamber. She smiled and handed it to him.

"I'm going to have some level of mercy, and leave you with a way out. One bullet, all you need to end your own life, but waste it and you're at the tender mercy at your own creations. I wonder, will you die of terminal chest pain, become one of the walking dead, or maybe Eve will run across you…"

"You bitch. You monstrous bitch."

"Such harsh language," Nanami chuckled. "If I were you I'd shut up and take it like a man before I take your cowards way out."

Nanami turned to the others. "Lets go."

Ranma and Kodachi looked at on another and than began to leave.

As they walked away, Carthy could only look at the gun in his hand and weep.

"Why did you do that, Nanami?" Ranma asked. "Whatever he did to you..."

Nanami interrupted him by pulling out the wedding ring she'd pocketed.

"See this," Nanami said. "The person who owned this ring was infected with some sort psychotic, sentient parasite. It killed her soul and used the body to accomplish its ends. Carthy caused that. And this isn't the only thing he had. There's a whole box of these things in his quarters."

Nanami sighed and put the ring back in her pocket.

"My brother was the same," she said. "They steal lives, not just kill people. He deserves more than I could ever do to him. If we let him go, then we would only be insuring the destruction of others."

"Then you should have killed him simply and swiftly," Kodachi said. "What you did is torture."

"I don't know," Nanami said, frowning in confused thought. "I...I really don't know why I did that. It's just..."

"Let's just get out of here," Ranma said. "This place ain't good for our heads."

Nanami and the two hybrids(no, make that THREE hybrids, Nanami amended) had been making their way along one of the service corridors in the general direction of the hangar bays, deciding their next immediate move when the already demanding alert sirens changed their tone to an even more agonized electric shriek. Even more ominously, the blinking biohazard flashers went solid red.

"We've run out of time, I take it." Kodachi observed, nonchalantly. Impending disaster seemed a way of their new life, it seemed.

"Not good." Ranma affirmed.

"Oh, that tears it! We have to get OUT of here!" Nanami bit out. THAT particular alarm meant imminent disaster of the highest order, as if loose T-Viruses and mutant xenomorphs weren't bad enough. "No more shopping, folks, we gotta get to the shuttles NOW!"

"Where to?"

"From here, we have to take the next right, the-WHOWWW!"

The two hybrid-hosts had just picked up Nanami, bags and all, between them and began running with increasing speed down the hall in the indicated direction.

Nanami didn't know how long the ride lasted; of recent she'd been having entirely too many headlong flights of stark-raving terror and telescoped time to be happy with the experience. What she would later recall would be a marathon run through hell. She barely had time to recognize features in the halls streaming by and begin to shout directions before her two companions made the necessary turns, stopping where they had to to allow Nanami to slide her purloined passcode through the security doors, and get them through. The whole business had been in flickering lighting and the lurid red of the emergency backups; neither the lack of light nor the change in spectrum seemed to bother the hybrids, however, Nanami included, as she found her eyes instantly adjusting.

And the all the whole she could feel the chittering evil gathering around them, responding to their movements.

Not that they weren't alone in their dash. No, a run through hell had to encounter some of the denizens. They'd run, leaped, and skittered over bodies in the halls, slumped where the virus or worse had claimed them. Those that did move did so in ways that instantly announced their presence as the newly unliving. Nanami supposed some of them were coworkers, colleagues, perhaps even a few innocents like herself duped into working here, but she couldn't be bothered to shed a tear at this time; survival had its own priorities.

In any event, the three had simply smashed, slashed, and bludgeoned their way through the shambling dead, or Ranma and Kodachi had simply leapt over and past them(Nanami had the terrifying impression of flipping and bouncing off walls and ceiling). They'd paused only long enough to grab a weapon or two from the floor where they could; the three had quickly found replacements for the acid-exploded weapons Nanami had been forced to abandon back at Carthy's apartment.

Oh, and there at been at least one drone, leaping hissing and clawing from some side corridor.

There had been no hesitation this time; the three had simply slashed and blasted the bugs, careful to get clear of the splashing acid blood this time.

That was the other frightening part of their journey. What had started out as an awkward three-legged race of a run, Nanami being borne between the two clone-hosts, had, by the time they reached the doors to the hangar gallery, become a well-oiled machine, each member-part reacting to the others near instantaneously. Nanami supposed it MIGHT be bonding under pressure, but she suspected it might be more.

"Okay, folks, let's hope we still have a ride out of here!" She reached for the door inside-

Only to have to fight it as suction tried to pull the hatch closed. The Repository world had a lower atmospheric pressure than terrestrial normal; that meant there had to be an environmental breach.

Well, no avoiding that; they still had to get at what was inside the bay, if only to find out if they had a chance of getting out of here. The three forced the door open and were practically pulled inside by the air pressure.

Curiously enough, Nanami didn't hear her ears pop. Another benefit of her new mutation, the scientist in her still clinically observed; after all, the bugs had shown a nasty ability to survive lower atmospheric pressures and even vacuum.

She shouldn't have worried; the bay still had a half-dozen small craft clustered inside it. If anybody had left already, there were no signs of it.

"Which one?" Ranma shouted in the thinning air inside the bay.

"Uhm...THAT one!" Nanami pointed at the closest craft, a big engined job that might be a courier; Nanami knew biologics better than she did hardware, but the thing looked fast and more importantly it looked fueled and ready, parked nearest both the way they'd come in and to the open hangar doors. "Let's GO!"

They sensed the encroaching presences before they saw their movement.

"Oh *shit*. Don't you guys EVER give up?" Nanami groaned as a small pack of snarling, toothsome black shapes emerged from the shadows, encircling the three. The small hive had converged on the aberrations, and had come to exterminate the competition. "I really REALLY hate bugs!"

"We'll take care of these! You get the ship ready to go!" Ranma's actions might be considered rather trusting, but he also knew he no idea of how to fly one of those spaceships. He DID know combat, however.

He and Kodachi leapt at the oncoming drones, their past fear of them forgotten in the moment.

Not wasting a moment, Nanami practically flew up the gantry way and went for the ship's hatch, reaching for the opening mechanism. Lift, turn, and in.

At least in theory.

"What the HELL?! LOCKED?!" Of all the indignities; come all this way only to find their escape blocked by a stupid door loc-

Wait. Nanami glanced at the door insignia. EXEC DIRECTOR: D. CARTHY-AUTHORIZED ACCESS ONLY.

Oh, it figured. Who ELSE would have the best parking spot in the whole facility? Nanami grabbed for the passcard that was quickly becoming their Key to Heaven, and punched it in the hatch reader, hoping that Carthy wasn't so paranoid that he would require a password or retinal scan. She could hear the snarling battle and sense the approaching appetites converging on her.

Nanami spun around just in time and fired off a burst with her carbine, spraying bug shell and guts across the gantry way, then turned back to the door.

Carthy hadn't required a password or anything elaborate. Overconfident and stupid, fortunately. The hatch slid open, light pouring out from inside the awaiting ship.

"OKAY, PEOPLE! WE'RE SAILING -NOW-!" Nanami screamed into the bay. She backed into the hatch, periodically firing bursts at anything that that didn't look or feel friendly.

Just as she got inside, a ball of limbs, chitin, and tails threw itself inside. Nanami almost put a burst into it before she recognized her new companions.

"BEHIND US!" The shout was both physical and mental. Nanami didn't need a second one before she let off a sustained burst and a grenade for good measure out the open door. A scream of alien pain and death accompanied the subsequent explosion.

Nanami hit the emergency door release, slamming it closed.

She turned to find the two clones on the deck, a little the worse for wear, their scavenged guard uniforms torn and ripped, their 'morphed armored skin looking cracked, scuffed, and in places bitten through, but healing before her eyes. They were panting heavily, but otherwise looked okay.

Then there came the sound of something hitting the door behind her and scratching at it. Persistent damn things.

"That will hold them, but not for long!" Nanami yelled as she hauled for the cockpit on the ship.

It wasn't a big ship, and she found the cockpit readily enough. It was empty; looked like nobody else had thought to steal the director's ride. The biochemist threw herself into a seat in front of the heavily instrumented console, reaching for the seat belts, then paused.

She'd had some basic instruction in shuttle piloting from her ex-boyfriend back in the day, but she knew biochemistry more than she knew hardware. Unfortunately, she lacked her ex's particular talent for bonding with machinery, this looked more like the setup for a small STARSHIP. How the hell was she going to make sense of all this in time?

As if to punctuate that thought, Nanami heard scrambling at the windows in front of her. Sure enough, she could see a black shape on the other side of the heavy thermo-armor glass cockpit glazing. Great, those things never seemed to give up, and they had a nasty habit of getting in where they shouldn't.

HELLO, DIRECTOR. WELCOME ABOARD.

Nanami whirled at the mechanical female voice in the cockpit.

I AM FULLY READY FOR LAUNCH. I DETECT A DECLARED LEVEL-ONE EMERGENCY IN HANGAR BAY ONE. WILL YOU BE AWAITING FURTHER PASSENGERS OR EVACUATING IMMEDIATELY?

Nanami stared at the lit console, before seeing the flashing plasma screen and its icon. CYBERDYNE SHIPBOARD AI ENGAGED.

Oh, bless Carthy's paranoia and stupidity, but not the man himself! Of COURSE the slime wouldn't trust his safety to a pilot who might be late or turn out to be unreliable! Of COURSE he'd pump some of his blood money sunk in his personal yacht, because this was surely what the ship was, into a state-of-the-art autopilot Artificial Intelligence. And God bless that it was dumb enough not to recognize that Carthy WASN'T aboard!

"Evacuating immediately!" Nanami practically shouted at the machine, hoping that it had a vocal interface, and NOT a voice recognition system.

COMMAND ACCEPTED. AWAIT EVACUATION ORDER, TAXI CLEAR OF HANGAR BEFORE ENGAGING EMERGENCY LIFT, OR EMERGENCY TAKEOFF?

"EMERGENCY TAKEOFF!"

DAMAGE MAY BE INCURRED TO HANGAR FACIL-

The scratching at the cockpit glass was getting louder. "DAMN THE HANGAR! GET US THE HELL OUT OF HERE!"

COMPLYING. ENGAGING EMERGENCY TAKEOFF PROTOCOLS IN 5, 4, 3,

"People, you might want to brace yourse-"

 **SHHHHHHHHHRRROOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW**

The ship's engines lit to life with a roar like the Devil getting a rectal exam and a kick like God kicking a field goal up aforementioned Devil's posterior.

Which is almost exactly what happened. The ship lifted and threw itself across the bay, ploughing aside what flimsy gantry works still remained attached. Nanami had a brief impression of claws sliding off the glass, malign presences falling behind, and flames shooting past the edges of her view as the ship threaded through the open hangar bay doors into the wane daylight of the outside. Then a second kick as the ship clawed for the sky ceiling, boosting upward to clear whatever emergency the computers had detected. The horizon dropped with a speed that made even Nanami's hybridized guts rebel.

Nanami Jinnai didn't care. It all felt like away to her, like the sensation of being carried off on angel's wings. She was OUT of that place.

She sat up in the seat and let the automatics take over as the ship arced into the upper atmosphere. A moment later she felt, as much as heard, her two companions crowd into the cockpit behind her, heard their murmurs of interest as they looked at the unfamiliar(and rapidly darkening) sky as the spacecraft soared for orbit.

The late Farren had done his work well. More than a meltdown, the powerplant's catastrophic failure truly was more on the order of an explosion, as the miniature sun of nuclear fusion finally slipped its manmade bonds. Magnetic containment barriers dropped away, their physical elements the first victims of the expanding plasma as magnetic conduits melted into vapor. Insulation and heat-exchanger walls were next, peeled away and incinerated. Radiation shielding offered no more protection as the plasma storm hit its stride. In less than a second, the reactor core has been laid bare, the light of an uncontrolled fusion reaction shining in all its awful glory upon the complex proper. A bright light that is the last any living being still able to see and comprehend in the necropolis will ever perceive.

Within moments the radiation wave slices through the complex, followed hotly by the shock wave. Organic tissues scorch and evaporate under the impact of the first, more durable structures shatter and vaporize under the arrival of the second. Acres of research complex, hundreds of life forms and un-lifeforms become light. The hell that is unleashed is in its way cleaner than the sterile Abbadon of the laboratories that it destroys; a cleansing final fire that scours away Umbrella Corps' manmade abomination.

A fireball of white incandescence heaves up from the surface of the planet, casting its fearsome light across the desolate landscape. It is an announcement that the planet now truly is dead.

Ranma and Kodachi watched out the viewport, momentarily entranced by the lightshow that was destroying what had to been to them both the birthplace and the abattoir of hundreds of prior incarnations of themselves. A fitting pyre to those who had gone before.

Nanami spared a moment to watch as she oversaw the flight of the escape ship away from her former employment place. She'd already discerned enough to know the ship was functioning without any problems, and had already figured that the ship was fitted with a late-model Weyland-Rockwell tachyon shunt. She had no doubt Carthy had the ship's AI programmed to handle hyperspace jumps on command, too, so getting out of the system and not just out of the atmosphere wasn't a problem.

That matter out of the way, she allowed herself to relax and watch the fireball rising into the stratosphere. Fireworks to end a day like today just seemed so appropriate.

"Good riddance." she allowed as she watched the Repository burn away in nuclear fire. She hoped and wanted that EVERY facility of her former employer should go out like that.

She fished in her pockets and the bag she had managed to still have with her, looking at the collection of discs, cubes, and sample cases inside. With THAT evidence, she just might have the opportunity.

Silently ghosting above a (now) lifeless world, the commandeered ship orbited. Nanami Jinnai had instructed the ship's autopilot to take a course that could make a few slow, ever-widening, orbits, spiraling out-system. That gave her the opportunity to watch as they made several repeat passes over the Repository's site, just to make sure it was well and thoroughly gone.

The nuclear mushroom cloud had slowly dissipated, but not before apparently igniting the layer of thin subsurface methane and oxygen permafrost that the complex had cracked for their own environmental needs. Now the former site of Umbrella Corps' frankenfactory was the center of an expanding ring of spreading fire, shrouding an increasing portion of the planet in ashy smog.

Nanami wondered how far around the planet the conflagration would spread before it suffocated itself.

Nanami sighed and slumped into the back parts of the ship. The computer could handle things well enough on its own; right now she had other things to attend to. Fresh clothes(she wanted to replace the second shirt she'd lost today to acid), a shower(god, but she wanted to try to get CLEAN!), quality sack time(preferably without nightmares)-

She opened the hatch to the rear rooms to reveal, as her new senses were telling her, her new companions starting to twine around each other.

 _Sex_ Her hindbrain reminded her of another priority.

Ranma and Kodachi started at the interruption, even though surely their own connection and told them of Nanami's approach. Reluctantly they broke their embrace(though their hands still remained clasped and their tails remained wrapped around each other), and looked at her.

 _Ah, young hybrids in love._ Nanami thought, feeling the waves of desire wafting off the two.

"What now?" Kodachi asked the question, her features softening and becoming more human from the armored dark-skinned form she and Ranma had previously been battling in. Nanami couldn't tell if it was a deliberate act or an instinctual powering-down.

 _Well, we have hot victory sex_ , Nanami thought, her hands starting to reach to tear off what remained of her bullet- and acid-ruined shirt, before shaking her head. Damn it, she was a biologist! She knew all about pheromones! _Strength of character, strength of character! Get your mind back on target!_

"Thanks," She replied to the two others' chemical invitation, " but I'll settle for a cold -Hold on." Yes! There it was! That unmistakable scent! Enhanced senses, don't mislead me!

With newly acquired predatory instincts, Nanami stalked her prey and homed in on it. Picking up on what she was after, Ranma and Kodachi trailed after the hunter, following her lead. Once she was certain she had it cornered, she pounced!

"Ah-ha! KNEW it had to be here!" Nanami's hand streaked out and grabbed the refrigerator door, yanking it open, and basking in the heavenly light beaming from within. "Executive transport. Figured the bigwigs HAD to have some good eats tucked away on it somewhere! Wow! Bottled beer! Not canned! Auslander Golden Brau!" Nanami flourished her kill in triumph for all to see.

Savoring the moment and the brand, but not caring about the niceties of civilized drinking, Nanami eschewed searching for a bottle opener and simply bit the cap off, trusting in her mutant teeth to get the job done.

(CHOMP*Pfstumpfr!*ptui!) "Cheers." She toasted.

Ah! Alcoholic bliss!

Ranma's stomach gave a gurgling roar as he breathed in the aromas wafting from the food locker, and stared into it like a pilgrim gazing on the Promised Land. Kodachi caught it too and licked her lips. Sex could wait; mutant metabolism hadn't been fed in nearly a whole day, perhaps longer. The spike of hunger through their shared network was intense, to say the least.

"Be my guests." Nanami graciously allowed and stepped aside as the rest of her pack moved in and started to thoroughly ransack the late Damon Carthy's icebox. Ranma was quickly happily devouring a whole rack of ribs, either not noticing or not caring that he had also eaten the bones in it as well. Kodachi, rather more cultured, demolished an entire wheel of Brie, before moving on to assault a selection of cold cuts. Nanami risked losing a hand and rescued a shank of meat from the feeding frenzy, alternating her drinking and eating.

Once the sounds of stone age slobbering and gobbling had died down somewhat inside the galley of the starship, the three took a breather, their hunger(for food at least) satisfied, their bellies full, and some of the excitement of the day bled away. Nanami looked down at her visibly distended stomach, and gave a ladylike belch.

 _Maybe we should worry about rationing if this is a typical feed for metabolisms like ours. Check in on that later._ She made a note to herself.

"Before we get on to other things, or whatever you were planning on doing, we gotta decide what to do next."

"You promised you'd tell us what was done to us." Ranma reminded. "We got the time now. Start talking."

"Well, seeing as we aren't in mortal fear for our lives right now, I could. Where to begin?"

"From the start." Kodachi interjected.

"Whow girl...that could take a while."

"We aren't going anywhere."

For the next hour or so, punctuated by the replacement of a fresh bottle of beer(Nanami discovered that the downside of a mutant metabolism was a quickly killed alcoholic buzz) or stop to murder another Dagwood snack, Nanami filled Ranma and Kodachi in on the highlights of what had transpired, roughly, in the last four hundred years or so since they'd originally died.

Human advancement, overcrowded Earth, expansion into space, the invention of star drives, the resulting diaspora, the rise and fall of corporate states and their colonial empires, the reciprocal fall and rise of nationalist movements, discovery of alien life, the discovery that it never was friendly, border wars, brush wars, corporate wars, xeno wars.

The Bugs; xenomorphs, Aliens; the fatal infatuation that Humanity seemed to have with the organic killing machines, the theories that they were either an naturally evolved 'super predator' or deliberately engineered destroyers of life.

"'Cockroaches of space', I call 'em! Every time we think we've killed them for good, some blockhead figures he can make a profit off them, by taming them or trying to get something out of them, finds a way to bring them back, and then loses control of them! Oh, the authorities come in and burn them out, but not before a lot of people get killed in the process, not that anybody learns from the incident; some damn fool thinks he can do a better job of containing the Bugs and it all starts all over again! Of course, it doesn't help that the Hunters keep spreading the damn things!"

"The Hunters?" Ranma asked, already having suspicions.

"The Yautja. We also call them Predators." Nanami emphasized the 'P' in her pronunciation, "They're big into proving themselves top of their evolution by hunting anything anything else. They seem to like stocking worlds with the Bugs for the challenge."

"Ah." Ranma and Kodachi remembered the solitary being they'd encountered in the halls of the Repository. They also recalled, with a chill, their first encounter with the 'Bugs'.

Nanami caught the shiver. "Yeah, they were on Earth, doing their thing, before we began expanding out into space. That's where yo- your original selves- likely got infected with the Bugs. The original yous died in the encounter, the government at the time hushed up the incident and buried the evidence, but kept the records, and cell samples. Century or so later, we encounter the Bugs when they ate a freighter crew and a colony of ours, we run into the Hunters, and some corporate slimebag remembers hearing rumors about encounters with monsters way back when, starts digging, and finds the old files."

Ranma and Kodachi grew noticeably tense; the history was hitting close to home now.

Nanami continued on, "The Bugs do more than just incubate in their hosts; there's an exchange of genetic material- the Bugs get DNA to help them adapt to their new surroundings and prey, but the host also gets changed. Not that it does them any good, though, because the Bugs invariably kill their hosts hatching out. From what I heard, Carthy and his scumbags would take your genes out of storage, tamper with them to get some desired change, clone you up, remove the incubating drones formed from the DNA passed to you in the original infection, see what the result of the changes to both the new drones and the cloned you was, then dispose of the clones." Nanami shuddered. She'd been kept away from the cloning end of things and had been sequestered away to work on pure Bug biology, being told only that the Bugs were obtained from 'cloned Human tissue cultures', but she'd heard stories through what passed for an in-shop grapevine.

"So, we're part...them." Kodachi said distastefully.

"And so am I. Ironic, no? I went into science to study ways to kill the Bugs, and now I'm part Bug myself. But you and I are also part a lot of other things too; the Company was testing a lot of other things as well and they thought they'd mix them up a bit to see what happened. Whatever part of Bug is in us, it's a small part in among a lot of other things, including very human consciousness, that has to count for SOMETHING." Nanami emphasized they were all in the same boat.

"All I know is that I feel human, I know who I am, and I know who Kodachi is, and what she is to me." Ranma declared, earning a look of affection from the hybrid girl. "And you're human too." He finished, looking at Nanami.

"Well, thanks." Nanami saluted him with her beer bottle before taking another swig.

Kodachi still looked uncomfortable. "Do you suppose any others of those Bugs may have survived? I-I felt them before, but I am uncertain about some of the things I've been feeling since, since we 'awoke'."

Ranma nodded. "You seem to know more about them than we do, and maybe sense them. I can tell."

"I don't feel anything now, aside from you two. Then again, I couldn't sense you before, but that was before I got my genetic makeover, and the other parts they grafted into you must have been masking you from my Talent. Then afterwards I could sense the Bugs a whole lot clearer. No, the ones outside the ship I could feel falling off, and then I felt them die in the backblast from the engines." _Lord, but frying Bug feels glorious!_ "Nanami-sama, do you think anybody else made it out alive?"

"I don't know if there are any other survivors. There was more than just the shuttles down there; there were escape pods as well. It's also possible that the facility had an emergency beacon, some way to let the Corporation know something had happened to their little shop of horrors. They might send somebody out to investigate; if so, we don't wanna run into them, or we'll be back to square one. We could run straight to the authorities, but which ones? The corpostates might not have the power they used to, but they're still pretty damn influential. We turn to the wrong authorities, we could find ourselves stonewalled, turned over to the corporates anyways, and set up for vivisection."

"No thanks." Ranma flatly refused.

"Amen to that. Likewise, I don't want to give up our little secret just yet and reveal the three of us ain't exactly human anymo-"

"Please, Nanami-san, I feel human and I will not be regarded as a 'freak'." Kodachi reminded her.

"BIOLOGICALLY human," Nanami corrected, forging on; "People just won't understand. It's a hostile universe after all, and people can get pretty xenophobic. That could easily be turned against us if it came down to a matter of credibility."

"So, we don't go to the cops directly." Ranma nodded. He had enough memories of evading the local authorities while training with his father, and of the absence of the law in Nerima to have no great loyalty to the idea of trusting the police or government. "What other options?" "I suspect, Nanami-sama, it would be suicidal to take on the company you worked for directly. So, what other options?"

"Damn straight it would be suicide. As for other courses? We can head for a colony where we can blend in, and where I can try to find a way to leak the information we got to somebody I can trust."

"You know of such people who can be trusted?"

"I have a few ideas. At least one, though he may be a little difficult to get ahold of. He's in a rather similar situation to ourselves."

"He's an alien hybrid clone?"

"Ha-ha! No, he's on the run."

"Why can't we head for Earth?"

"Thinking of getting back to the old ancestral homestead? No, Ranma, that's not a good idea. I doubt you'd recognize your old stomping grounds. Also, since some clusterscrew almost infected Earth with the Bugs a few years back, the authorities have been VERY intense about about any incoming traffic. The corporates are still pretty thick around Old Earth, and they tend to get antsy about their own security. No, until we're sure we're not going to get wasted by Traffic Control or a corporate ambush, running for Earth is not an option-Damn, I'm starting to sound like Makato! I mean, I just used to WORK for a corporation, and now I'm talking like one of his radicals! That's it, I need sleep!"

"So, we going someplace, or just drifting around more?" Ranma prompted.

"We set course for a colony world. Someplace we can tap into the public news nets and get some idea of whether there's any fallout from today. I've been out of touch with the rest of the human universe too long in that place getting the mushroom treatment I don't know for certain what's going on. Once we do, I'll have a better idea how we should proceed. I really want to get what evidence we have, and the T-Virus vaccine, to somebody who can use them to do some serious hurt to Umbrella and anybody else they were working with."

"Great. Well, it's better than nothing, and I could do with some peace and quiet for now. So this ship just flies itself and we wait?" Ranma sighed as he leaned back. Nanami noted that at some point his skin had reverted to a softer, more human tone and color, his tail had retracted, and his eyes had shifted from black to a startling blue. Again, she wondered if it was deliberate for her benefit or an instinctual shifting from a heightened alert state.

" You can wait, entertain yourselves, or study what passes for a library on this ship, and try to learn more about this screwed-up world you're both stuck in. I suspect, though, Carthy's tastes in reading material probably run to blackmail-drama and snuff-porn. Me? I'm going to find the shower on this thing and try to scrape what's left of that hellhole off me, then I'm going to find out what sort of beds corporates sleep on between the stars."

A command is given, an option selected, and an action executed. Sensors check and cross-check recorded charts and points of reference. Processing algorithms are brought up, data fed in, additional factors as relative motion, stellar drift, and available power are fed in. Millions of digital calculations culminate in a conclusion. The solution is checked and rechecked, and no significant deviations detected. The computer equivalent of satisfaction with the results is registered, and power is allowed to flow to the appropriate systems. A virtual mass field springs into existence, expands, reaches supercritical levels nearing infinity, and normal material mass transits into a tachyonic mirror-state. Unable to travel SLOWER than the speed of light in this state, the generating mass, a starship, vanishes from the realm of the merely material.

Nanami feels the tingle of tachyon transition as she stands under the shower in the living quarters, luxuriating in the feel of hot water and the sloughing off of the last particles of her former workplace from her skin. No big deal for her, this hyperspace travel; she's done it dozens of times before, whether awake or in hibersleep.

 _Others aboard the ship feel the tingle in their skin and bones and wonder at the novel feeling. Ranma and Kodachi turn to each other in wonder, see each other limned in the ghost light filtering in from the outside windows, see the gleam in each others' eyes. As one they move towards each other._

Nanami feels it first under the heat of the hot water cascading over her head and shoulders as a warmth coming up from her LOWER body.

 _Their lips meet, hands clasp, bodies touch. Each breathes in the scent of the other, breathes deep of the desire there, and obligingly respond to their partner's growing need._

Nanami's thighs begin rubbing together, her hands finding a sudden fascination with unexpectedly sensitive skin, touching here, playing there, teasing that.

 _Clothes closures are rapidly torn open, clothing pulled off, as the two sink to the floor, their tongues dancing in a lovers' kiss._

Nanami suddenly becomes aware of what's going on as she feels the flush of pleasure fill her entire being. A different sense of danger tingles in her brain as she realizes the source of her arousal. "Ah, people?!"

 _Legs wrap around each other, rubbing, pushing, positioning. Hands move along exposed flesh, touching, massaging, stimulating. Sensations rise, shared in their mutual bond, feeding back and amplifying as the two give and receive pleasure to each other, and incidentally feed their shared feelings through the third link in their mental network._

"-eep-!"

 _Kodachi breaks their kiss long enough to glance down and smile wide-eyed in approval at Ranma's growing arousal. The 'Wild Horse' is well-named indeed._

"-Please stop!" The call is weak, strained, quavering, and ignored.

 _Ranma looks at Kodachi, her bright eyes and her pouting lips framed by her wild black hair, truly a Black Rose in full blush. Her open invitation is all he needs._

"pleasepleasepleasedon'tdothistome." Hands scrabble at the walls of the shower stall, find no purchase, slip, and fall.

 _Two bodies move together in concert, an ancient rhythm of life taking hold._

"Oooolllllllhhhhhhhh!"

 _Two lovers lay wrapped around each other under the flickering ghost-light of tachyon-space, basking in their shared contentment._

 _It matters not whether it is alien reproductive urges, post-stress hyperstimulation, or centuries-repressed teenage hormones at work, centuries and billions of miles away from Nerima, a chase has ended, a connection made, and a union consummated._

" _Now I know I am dead, for I am clearly in Heaven." Kodachi murmurs as she looks into Ranma's eyes._

" _Oh, I dunno. I'm feeling VERY alive right now, and glad of it!" Ranma smiles as he settles his arm around Kodachi's shoulders and draws her closer._

In the shower a thoroughly demolished Nanami sprawls on her back on the floor of the stall, water still pouring over her, as she pants in the afterglow.

"-we are -definitely- having a talk about this sort of thing later." She mutters weakly, before passing out.

"Sir." There was no need for exchanged pleasantries; the operative knew why they'd been summoned. Only the specifics needed to be explained.

The operative's summoner therefore got to the point.

"Five days ago one of our outworld facilities had an as yet unknown incident that tripped its watch-bouy, causing it to send a notification signal to our offices. Subsequent attempts to contact the facility through secure channels have failed to elicit a response. At about the same time, the watch-buoy detected a tachyon-shunt activation. The drive was transponder-keyed to a ship registered to the facility's director, Doctor Damon Carthy. He was not authorized to travel anywhere at this time, nor has he since reported to the required location and Company officers to explain the circumstances could have caused the watch-buoy's activation. In fact, he would appear to have disappeared. This disturbs the Board. Doctor Carthy's work is of an important nature, dealing in matters sensitive to Company interests. His sudden departure from the facility and his breach of established protocol are matters of great concern. Therefore, you are to travel to the site, investigate the reasons for its uncommunicative status, ascertain Doctor Carthy's whereabouts, and the reasons for his deviation from policy. You are then authorized to terminate Doctor Carthy, any other personnel at the facility, and any other parties you deem necessary to protect Company interests."

"I understand perfectly, sir."

"Good. The details have already been downloaded to your personal access file, as have requisition codes for what assets will be at your disposal for this task."

There is no need for a dismissal; the operative did not need one. What was necessary to be said, had been said. The operative did not question, only followed orders, and accomplished them. That was all that was required.

"Inbound Three-Forty-Seven, you are cleared for final approach on flight path tango four-eight-one, pad delta-eight. Welcome to Ceti Alpha Seven."

"Thank you, Flight Control."

Nanami turned the final approach over to the newly-christened _Beagle's_ flight computer and the planetary traffic net. She glanced over at Kodachi who was gaping in wide-eyed amazement at the brown-and-blue sphere swelling in the forward viewports. Beside her, in contrast, Ranma just looked bored, his arms folded over his chest, as if he'd been travelling between the stars all his life.

"Ceti Alpha Seven. Or, as the unofficial galactic guide called it; 'Mudpie'. Sound promising, doesn't it?" Nanami drawled.

They'd not headed for the nearest civilized outpost to the hidden site of the Repository; instead Nanami had plotted a more circuitous course that would take them past several worlds and come up on a more remote location to touch base. It had taken them extra time to get there, but hopefully, if any word HAD gotten out about the destruction of the Repository, nobody would connect the arrival of their ship at this more distant location with possible survivors.

They'd used that time preparing. Once Nanami had come out of the hiding she'd gone into those first couple of days, then shakily told her companions to please knock off the sex games for the sake of her sanity, everybody had soberly gotten to work with the understanding they still had lots to do to insure their survival. The three had gone over the ship from end to end, taking an inventory of what they'd brought aboard (Kodachi had brought along a selection of clothing, odds and ends, and some barterable valuables, while Ranma had concentrated on survival gear and foodstuffs to supplement what was already on the ship), as well as what was stocked aboard (Nanami had been taken aback at the selection of women's clothing in Carthy's quarters, and found herself hoping that it simply meant the man had a woman in every port, and not something more sinister). They'd inventoried a selection of weaponry, including a few more firearms found aboard ship, with reloads; not an army's worth, but still enough to do some hurt. A nice little pile of credit sticks and barterable trinkets. They'd discarded the more incriminating and illegal personal possessions of the ship's late owner, just in case they were boarded and subjected to an inspection at some point in the future.

Besides doing the best she could to decontaminate the ship(including a harrowing effort to expose the interior of the ship to vacuum), Nanami had familiarized herself as much as possible with the ship's systems. Though no hardware geek, she tried to see the onboard technical manuals as guides to anatomy and biology, and the ship as a new organism to study and understand. It helped, but not much, but at least she wasn't likely to eject the entire onboard fuel supply while trying to turn on the running lights.

The two original hybrids had also done their best to acquaint themselves with the modern age of Starfaring Humanity. As expected, the late Carthy didn't stock a lot of educational material aboard for his recreational reading, but there had been enough to give them some ideas of how the modern culture was like. They also spent the time reacquainting themselves WITH themselves; the urgency of their escape past, the two clone-hybrids had spent time practicing consciously reshaping their bodies, at Nanami's prompting of what Kodachi had previously demonstrated. The hybrids were soon able to qickly assume a wholly human appearance, but could readily regrow a tail or other specialized physical features in moments with some concentration. Then too, they'd spent a lot of time in introspection, recalling what they could of their past lives.

Ranma watched the approaching planet; to a degree he WAS bored. After that first night of carnal bliss, the urge to merge had largely passed, but not, to Ranma's amazement, the warmth between them. As more and more of his past lives' memories surfaced, he was finding THAT even more amazing.

The Black Rose and him? Who'd have thought?

Other discoveries were no less amazing. The who changing appearance, for example. Ranma wondered how far they could take it; so far he hadn't been able to grow wholly new features or appendages aside from what they'd already done; he wondered if perhaps there was less conscious control and more instinctual response to circumstances at play there. He'd have to look more into it in the future. Actual PHYSICAL adaptation to situations as an extension of Anything Goes? THAT sounded promising. Also, to his joy in the shower, he'd discovered that his Jusenkyo curse was apparently gone; evidently dying and rising again had done SOME good, though he doubted he'd ever recommend the process as a cure.

That got him thinking; did Jusenkyo even EXIST any more? Nanami had said a lot had changed on Earth in the four hundred or so years that had passed. but surely SOME things had remained? Were people still getting cursed at the Pools of Sorrow? Were there any Chinese Amazons left?

Was there anybody left of who they'd known back then?

He wrenched his thoughts away from that line of thought. They'd find out, one way or the other in all good time. For now, though, it seemed that the waiting of traveling (without having to swim oceans or ride on the top of trains) was coming to an end. He perked up as the ship began entering atmosphere.

Kodachi was rather more excited. Though she tried to retain the decorum proper to a lady of her station, she couldn't help but be amazed at the place she had found herself in. She was actually among the stars! She was travelling from planet to planet, across the galaxy! Though she had remained aloof of such starry-eyed speculation and plebian entertainments when she had been growing up the center of of her own universe back in distant Nerima, she did admit to a fascination with the stars, and a desire to dance among them as she did under them across the rooftops of her hometown. And now she was! She, Kuno Kodachi (or was it Saotome Kodachi, a part of her mused?) was flying among the stars! Had ever a member of her family done so, come out this far?

That exuberant thought suddenly sobered her. HAD any Kunos survived the massacre in Nerima, survived to one day take part in the great outward migrations as Humanity had ascended into the galaxy to spread from star to star? Or had her family line died then and there? Was she the last of her bloodline? The records aboard the ship did not address any of those issues.

Kodachi resolved that one day, when they had the chance and access to the appropriate resources, she would find out what had become of her illustrious family line.

In the meantime, her thoughts turned to the latest addition to the family line standing next to her as she felt a tingle of warmth and mischief. My, how her brother would have reacted!

She was smiling broadly as the ship descended through the clouds.

They'd made the approach over large mudflats under a hazy brown sky, seen the large towers of ore smelters and converters, massive piles of mineral rich sand being bulldozed up, and large evaporating pools beside a sluggish-looking brown sea. The spaceport wasn't far from a low-lying collection of modular buildings and gridwork streets that had to be the local community, the specks of ground transport making their way down the streets, or out into the country, to the evaporation-mines, settling pools, and the distant greens and browns of what looked like cultivated fields. Then they'd descended onto a hard-top tarmac to touch down besides cargo lighters and intersystem shuttle-haulers and waited for the official greeting party.

To Nanami's annoyance, the planet hadn't had an outpost of the Colonial Marines. Apparently the wartime pressures had led to the CMC being pulled out recently to serve other, more urgent, fronts. Instead, the colony had to depend on a mercenary security firm, some small cop-corp playing warrior. Upon landing, the _Beagle_ had been boarded by armed and armored men and given a search for obvious contraband (making Nanami happy she'd insisted they 'sanitize' the ship), and checked the hull spaces for hitchhikers (there were none). As slapdash as the corp-cops looked and rude as they acted, Nanami's respect for them went up a notch even as her anxiety pegged up a similar notch. The mercs had apparently heard enough Bug-horror stories that they at least went through the motions of looking for drones and eggs, poking their burn-guns here and there while the crew and passengers stood off to one side under the guns of a nervous-looking trio of gunners. Of course, if they had been REALLY on top of things, they'd have inspected the ship OUTSIDE the atmosphere, even before the _Beagle_ had hit atmosphere.

 _Just don't ask us for gene-scans,_ Nanami thought, _Or you'll get the shock of your lives, boys and girls._

Ranma had borne the scrutiny of the authorities stoically, and had borne the thinly-veiled looks of appreciation shot at Kodachi quietly, if grimly. Kodachi for her part had preened under the attention, and that had actually helped defuse some of the tension of the inspection.

Finally, the boarding team sergeant had declared himself satisfied with the inspection and the (dummied-up) travel papers of the _Beagle_ and its complement, brusquely repeated the 'Welcome to our little corner of the universe' spiel, and he and his men had clomped off the ship.

As soon as the inspection team had disappeared down the gangway, Nanami had turned to her companions.

"Okay, people, Mudpie's a corporate colony; little corp by the name of Kessler Amalgamated Minerals runs the place. This may be their one-trick pony colony, but don't make trouble insulting the local Company. We're supposed to be life support techs on our way out-Arm, but don't get involved in tech-talk with anybody. I'm going to go over to what they got for a trans-com and see if I can't download some news and send out a few feeler messages to some people I think I can trust. I'd ask you to stay with the ship, but I figure that's not going to happen, so at the least stay close to the ship and try to stay out of trouble?"

"We're not idiots."

"Nope, just centuries out of time. Take the comms if you go out." Carthy's 'yacht' had come with a nice selection of personal gizmos, including several nice personal electronic organizers/communicators, for the exec who needed to stay in touch, or the refugees who needed to be wary.

Kodachi tossed one of the Blackberry-like devices up in the air, balanced it spinning on one finger, and cocked an eyebrow at Nanami.

Nanami scowled, then grinned at the display, picked up several of their acquired credit sticks and headed for the hatchway.

"Don't do anything I wouldn't. I MEAN that!" She tossed over her shoulder before she debarked.

Even though since the wars with the Predators and the Bugs had broken out in earnest the Colonial Marine Corps had FINALLY been getting the sort of extensive funding and advanced equipment they SHOULD have had all along as the armed services of central authority, the corporations still, more often than not, kept the best toys they developed for themselves.

The long lean dark ship that now circled the blasted, nameless, place that was once the location of Yutani-Umbrella's secret lab, was cousin to the planet in that it showed up on no official records. It had no registry, it had no registered name, no official existence. No licenses had ever been filed for its construction, or its fitting. Though the size of a CMC destroyer, it appeared in no starship identification databases. Its very existence, if ever acknowledged, would have violated over a dozen fundamental Interstellar Commerce Commission charter laws regarding armaments and systemry.

Invisible probes poked and prodded the still cooling ash on the planet below, searched the lake of molten glass, and tapped the plains frosted by misted metal condensate. Optics peered through the thin, hazy, atmosphere at blast-darkened landscape and erupted ground, scrutinizing fallout patterns and debris fields. Other unseen sensor vanes swept nearby space for survivors.

They found them. Objects found drifting in orbit. One, two, finally three lifepods, drifting in the darkness, weakly returned the search scans and answered the hails. The ship swept up to the tiny vessels, took them inside a large bay, bringing them inside to the light, before the bay doors slid shut.

Some time later, a smaller hatch briefly opened in the side of the dark ship, and several smaller objects emerged, accompanied by a small puff of quickly dissipating vapor. The ship accelerated past, leaving the small objects behind in its wake.

Abandoned jetsam, the bodies tumbled towards the planet below, the dead world's thin atmosphere more than sufficient to friction-cremate them.

A bright, shimmering form of a vaguely humanoid being of light with wide wings seemed to drift lazily through the darkness of space. Though the figure was much slower than an ftl star-craft, she'd still been fast enough to be well gone from the system before the investigative ship arrived.

Originally, Aya's ascension had required immense levels of energy and lasted only briefly and proved only really practical in battle.

That had been four-hundred years ago.

Still, space-flight required huge amounts of energy from both her and her symbiotic neo-mitochondria. She had a very good chance of reaching a viable, for her, planet before she tired and either the vacuum or the burn out killed her, but it still wasn't the option she'd most have wanted to go for.

This was more like something Eve would do, except for the fact that the Parasite was so concerned with power that she'd burn out any host long before reaching any safe harbor. The symbiote didn't care so much about overwhelming power, only survial. It knew how to pace itself and its host.

Sometimes Aya wished she could actually talk to the second sentience in her instead of just sort of feel it. Would give her some companionship in situations like these.

To make matters worse, she had no way to confirm whether or not Eve had died.

If not, then her consciousness escaped in some unlucky woman and soon the parasite would try to produce the Ultimate Being again.

Fortunately, that wasn't something that could be accomplished with just any breeding sample.

The war wasn't over yet.

And she still had a bone to pick with STARS.

One of the corporation security personel, a hard-faced woman, sat in the medical bay of the sleek, dark ship and waited for the scans to tell whether or not she was infected.

"Damn bitch," she muttered as she investigated the scratches on her arms. "Better not have been infected."

One of the survivors that they'd processed had managed to get close enough to beg for mercy and scratch the woman. She'd seemingly been driven mad in panic.

"Good news," the medic said. "I found no evidence of the T-Virus in either you or the blood sample from that woman."

"That's good at least," the merc said.

And inside her cells, neo-mitochondria sharing a single horrid sentience reproduced as slowly as they could to prolong both the survival of this most recent host and how long she would be overlooked.

If someone had resurrected her from the past, then someone had to have Meada's research and that meant the ingredients for the ultimate being existed somewhere.

A being she could infect and control and use all the energy she wanted without burning out the body.

Nanami silently thanked god as she distanced herself from the others. Over the past few days her sanity had been left in a tattered state. First she almost was killed, was infected by the T-virus, was turned into an alien abomination, then locked on a small starship with two other Hybrids, one of whom was pretty much the poster child for 'wasted intellectual potential' while the other was just plain bonkers, though mostly harmless, if you could describe a shape shifting alien killing machine who was trained in the martial arts as anything even remotely resembling 'harmless'.

If that wasn't enough, which of course it wasn't, to make matters worse they were probably the galaxy's biggest horn balls, and if that wasn't bad enough its own, her sex drive was screaming so loudly that it might as well hold a damned public concert! Now, to finalize this giant cluster fuck of a mess, Kodachi was pregnant. She had been since the night the two first had sex, or rather, the night they first mated.

Nanami didn't want that, she wasn't ready for kids. She didn't even like kids, and as much as part of her being was jumping up and down in psychotic glee at the thought of having babies, lots of lots of squirming, crying, pissing, shitting obnoxious little babies! To make matters even more messed up she was downright terrified at the idea of what hideous little abominations she'd be brining into the world? Would they be human, or at least human-ish, or would they be... something else.

Hell, she wasn't even sure if she could use a fucking condom! Her blood was a highly concentrated acid that could burn through a bank vault. Who knew what her other bodly fluids could do? She personally rated the odds of a measly little Latex condom holding up to even one round of hot alien fucking being about those of a ice cream cone in a blast furnace!

It was moments like this she was glad that Hyper-sleep was so damned unpleasant. She'd entered cryo when she simply couldn't fucking take it anymore, and woke up so damned cranky that if her darling Makoto himself had walked up behind her and told her he wanted to make sweet sweet romantic love to her, a favorite fantasy of hers mind you, that she probably would have brained him and stormed off in a huff.

Now that she was away from the others, one of her plans besides meeting up with her 'old friend' on planet, was to get a nice private hotel room far away from the others, and spend the next twelve or so hours masturbating furiously. She could get supplies tomorrow, right now she had fuckin' itch that was begging to be scratched!

Shaking her head Nanami looked at where she was and frowned. What the hell? Looking from side to side at the dark, debris filled back street she was on she realized she must have made a wrong turn. She knew her friend was working in the less affluent area of the town but this was a bit beyond the pale.

Normally she would have completely freaked out just about then, her mind full of horrific nightmares about rapes and robberies, assaults and murders, but in all honesty she found herself not really concerned about that. In fact, she was much more annoyed about having to spend the extra time waiting to hit up her hotel room. Frowning she turned to retrace her steps and get back on the main route.

As she walked back along the abandoned seeming street towards the intersection, her ears twitched at the sound of heavy foot falls on concrete. Five figures, probably male, all in heavy work boots, and they were surrounding her.

"Oh, how stereotypical," she muttered as she sped up, though she knew that it wouldn't do much. Two of them were almost directly in front of her. In fact, they were coming into view right about now. She slid to a neat stop as two burly figures holding pipes walked into view.

"Now now," one of them said, leering at her, "Now what do we have here?"

Nanami simultaneously felt her skin crawl in disgust as his eyes traced her curves while at the same time, his choice of statement made her want to roll her eyes. The one feeling she didn't get was any form of fear. Unless they were hiding heavy weapons and power armor under those grungy clothes the amount of physical threat posed to her by this pitiful lot hovered somewhere between 'nonexistent' and 'comical at best'. In all honestly, it would be like a grown man being frightened by a pack of angry little girls.

With a put upon sigh she crossed her arms and looked at them like they were the lowest from of life on the face of the galaxy. "You have someone who doesn't have time for this bullshit, so step aside and no one gets hurt."

"No one gets hurt!" the boss laughed. "Listen bitch, we were just going to take your money but now I think we're going to have some fun with you first, how does that sound?"

"I do NOT have time for this shit. I do NOT have time for your shit! I do NOT have time for ANY shit!"

With that, Nanami punched the first would-be rapist in the chest.

HARD.

Breastbone popped audible, collarbone snapped, and lungs emptied before the large man was lifted off his feet, flew through the air, and slammed into the alleyway wall.

The other man gapped as his partner became a projectile, before turning to the offense, his pipe-bludgeon spinning like a movie-ninja's weapon in front of him as he advanced.

Nanami met him halfway, her fist punching through the pipe's dubious defensive shield, and smashing into his ribs. He wailed high-toned as his ribs cracked and he smacked into the other wall, his pipe ringing as it bounced off the ground.

"Shit! She's a SYNTHETIC!" one of the trio behind her yelled. That was the warning she got as two of them charged her.

A hammer bounced off her shoulder as she spun around and kicked out hard. The man might have been wearing reinforced boots, but not reinforced pants, and yet another cracking noise told of a broken femur. A sudden scream and a growing spot of red on his pants clarified it as a greenstick fracture.

The other man was hampered trying to get around his screaming colleague. Nanami took advantage of this by grabbing the lamed man by the face and pushing, practically HEAVING him, back into the face of the other man.

Back of skull meet front of teeth, watch teeth fly, see blood spray as nose breaks. Hello, floor of alley. A follow-up kick to the ribs stopped efforts to get back into the fight.

It was brutal and lacked grace, all force and no style, but it was short and it got the job done.

Nanami now faced the man who had called her a synthetic. She glared at him. He stared back at her, standing over his moaning, groaning, screaming, compatriots. Nanami didn't need enhanced senses to smell the fear wafting him as he trembled in place.

" **I. Have. Cramps.** " Nanami growled.

That was enough to break the remaining bandit's nerve. He turned and ran like hell, nearly knocking himself out as he slipped and tripped over debris in the alleyway on his way out.

Nanami looked down at her four would-be attackers and at her bunched fist. She wasn't even breathing hard after all that, and the place she'd been tagged on the shoulder didn't even register as pain; she doubted she'd even bruise.

"I think I'll call you my Fist of Death."

With that, Nanami stepped over the not-so-menacing-anymore bandits and made her way out of the alley.

The encounter had worked off some frustration, but not nearly enough. She had a private room to find, and some serious self-help to administer before she could confidently call herself feeling rational again. And to hell with anybody who got in her way!

Ranma and Kodachi looked up as they felt the surge of anger and incipient violence echo through their heads. For a moment they tensed and glared around, looking for any possible threats in their vicinity.

Their fellow passengers on the shuddering, creaking, trolley-bus into the local township were suddenly aware of the newcomers somehow taking on a decidedly DANGEROUS aspect, like that of a cocked and coiled snake, ready to strike, or scorpions with upraised stingers. There was a frantic pushing and edging AWAY from the two.

Then the moment passed. There was a feeling of adrenaline release, of satisfaction, and of danger passed. Ranma and Kodachi relaxed, standing down, and slumping back to the business of looking bored.

But the other passengers continued to give them a WIDE berth.

Nanami grinned like a maniac as she spotted a love hotel close to the alleys exit. While she'd thought she'd go talk to get friend first, it might be a good idea to get the edge off before she finished freaked out. There had been a moment there against those thugs where she'd felt the need, or at least the want, to transform into something a bit more comfortable and claw their faces off.

While she'd never used one of these she heard enough from some of her sluttier high school friends to know the steps. She simply walked over to the room selector on the side of the wall, punched in which room she wanted, fed her cash into the machine, accepted the resulting keycard, and was good to go. It was a simple and completely impersonal process developed to a fine art over the decades by people who wanted their privacy kept well intact.

Unlocking the inner door she couldn't help but skip to her destination with a happy smile on her face. Sliding open the door she jumped in and slammed it closed, laughing all the way, though making sure to click the manual deadbolt. Immediately she pulled a small device out of her pocket and put it on the nightstand. It was a small toy she'd picked up in Cathy's room. He was a paranoid little fucker and this device was made to scramble any outside surveillance, and to detect any internal.

While the sniffer did its scan she pulled her shirt over her head and threw it on the table. Next she unhooked her bra, giving her nipples a pleasant little tweak before. After that she kciked off her shoes, pulled off her socks, and quickly unzipped her skirt, pulling it down along with her panties and casting them to the side.

Posing in her panties for a moment she took a second to admire herself in the mirror. She had to admit, the transformation had done a world of good for her in the looks department. Her breasts were fuller, her belly was flatter, her butt was firmer, and all in all she'd gone from what she'd have proudly described as 'bookishly cute' to dead sexy. She had to admit, while this had its downsides, there were the perks to being a super-hybrid creature.

With an almost comical 'ding' the sniffer finished its scan.

Smiling, Nanami let her human visage slip and her body quickly morphed from that of a stunningly beautiful human woman, to something definitely not human, but still holding the same a level of beauty that made it both alluring while profoundly unsettling.

Her form was human in proportion but profoundly alien as well. Black skin, long fleshy tentacles in place of hair, razor sharp teeth and claws, inhuman eyes, subcutaneous chitinous armor plating that shifted to exoskeletal in some locations such as the knees, elbows, and around parts of her such as spots on the hips and the back, seeming to go around to the front simply to cup her breasts like some kind of biological armored open cup bustier. In fact her entire armor pattern seemed to offer as much for the eye as it did for protection. For a moment she wondered if it was some kind of build in mating display.

She cracked her neck and turned around, getting a good look at her still pert rear, and the distinctly bug like tail that reached down from it, swaying in the air lazily, its razor tip floating there with unspoken threat. Her eyes glanced up to her muscular, armored back to her own short mass of tentacles, which while longer than her human hair, were still nothing compared to the veritable mass that lay on Kodachi's head. Though She did admit, Kodachi had a lot of hair, so maybe it was a direct correlation. The tentacles themselves did make her think. Was it a sign of some unspoken hunter DNA in the mix or just a coincidence?

She snorted. She'd find out later. Right now she had some self-exploration of a completely non-scientific nature to perform. While originally she'd considered doing it in human form, she'd changed her mind as the pressure built up.

As disturbing as she found it, this was her natural form. She'd have to get used to it, and while she could hold human form without any effort or discomfort, part of her felt restrained in it. Ranma and Kodachi had spent a great deal of time in this form around the ship while she'd been stuck staying in human pretty much the entire time, both to dull the scent of their pheromones and to keep Ranma from getting any smart ideas. It was hard to wear proper clothes without destroying them in this form, and with its increased sensitivities and her building need, all it would of taken was him slipping one hand over a breast, another down her front, some playful whispers to banish her weak protests, and she'd have been on her knees and receptive to mate in minutes.

He knew it, she knew it, and Kodachi knew it. She was just lucky that Kodachi was clingy, and he seemed to be respectful of women, or she'd already be pregnant.

Shaking her head she gathered her clothes, turned out the pockets, and threw them in a bag, and down the laundry shoot to be washed. Most of her clothes were getting a bit over worn as she only had so many changes, and it would feel good to have clean underwear. She loved complimentary services!

She smiled and walked to the hot tub and turned it on. It would feel almost as good as this. Slipping in she grinned and she put her hand between her legs. Letting out a inhuman hiss of pleasure she started her work. She could think of far less pleasant things to depend the next few hours doing.

– – –

Almost a mile away, Ranma's head snapped and he felt a deeply set aggravation settle in his stomach. On a intellectual level he knew that Nanami was not his mate, but on a more primal level he felt a strong aggravation at the idea of a female that was part of his circle finding sexual pleasure without mating with him a challenge to his masculinity. It was a strange feeling, and annoying one, and not entirely pleasant. IF anything it reminded him of that bug he'd get up his ass every time Taro would call him Femboy.

"Relax, love," Kodachi said placing her hand on his. "She'll come around eventually."

He frowned slightly and looked off into Nanami's direction. "I know. Just I hate to wait."

She smiled and cuddled up with him. "If it makes you feel that challenged, we could go back to the ship you know, slip into something a bit more... comfortable?"

Finding the colonial communications center was easy. After paying off her hotel room, grabbing a quick nondescript breakfast of locally-produced proteins, carbohydrates, and what was optimistically called 'coffee' at an equally nondescript vendor-shop, Nanami quickly headed for the core colonial administration complex and the accompanying cluster of Administrative-Utilitarian architecture sprouting from it. The tall tubular frame pyramid of aerials atop the bunker-plex told of a tachyon-pulse comlink, just what she wanted.

Nanami presented her credentials to the bored-looking male secretary/technogeek manning the door to the public communications center. Behind her , a technician worked on the air conditioning; the air was close and stuffy inside the tech-center, redolent with the smell of hot plastics and ceramics, and too many people. To Nanami's enhanced senses, it was a punch in the face.

So distracted by the aural assault was she that she didn't notice the flaring of the man's nostrils, the dilation of his eyes, and the sudden flush to his skin.

So she was extremely grateful when the suddenly helpful technician buzzed her in, ahead of several other people who had already been there. Fortunately, the inner commcenter was air conditioned (more for the benefit of the electronics than for the people) and blessedly well ventilated.

She quickly found an available communications kiosk, slipped in, fed in one of the credsticks she had on her, and booted up the terminal.

 _Let's see; download the last few months of public news dispatches, do a quick read-thru of recent news, and compose a few messages. Okay, let's get to work._

Mudpie lived up to its name; dingy and brown, but once away from the acrid smells of burnt propellent and mineral dust at the spaceport, the air was humid and smelled of a combination of fresh turned earth and thunderstorm.

Ranma and Kodachi breathed it all in as they walked along one of the roads into the town; it wasn't as bad as Tokyo smog, at least as they remembered it.

To the casual eye, the two might have looked like just a pair of tourists, a young couple out to find their fortunes in the universe, not yet in a hurry to get places and do things, but more wrapped up in each other, as they walked along, rather than take the more convenient mass transit around the colony.

They'd only be half-right; the two WERE wrapped up in each other's company, but they were hardly NOT unaware of their surroundings.

All the time, Ranma was studying the land and its lay, watchful for possible threats. He was also looking for useful places; practice areas, where he might train without interference, bol-tholes, where he and his pack might come and go unnoticed, resources, that might be used, paths of retreat, if it came to that. Memories of traveling under a father who'd rather go noticed and live off the land without paying, combined with instincts to find dark places to hide and to den, and complemented each other with unexpected efficiency.

And as for Kodachi...

She too, shared the same alertness and attention to her surroundings, but with even greater attention to possible places to nest.

She could feel the new life growing inside her, how many and what form she could not know as yet, but she knew that any offspring born of her and Ranma would be _glorious_.

She felt a shifting inside her, and her hand dropped down to touch a deceptively still-flat stomach. She could sense the eagerness of the life within to blossom, to grow, and to finally make its way out into the outside world, but their situation dictated otherwise. Until they knew more, and were more familiar with their new lives, she dared not let her pregnancy proceed at the pace it was capable of. It would not do to endanger that life or bring it into the world under less-than-optimal circumstances. And so she managed to slow it down, control its maturation, until conditions were better.

 _Patience, little one(s), patience. Your Mommy and Daddy just have to make things right, and you can come out, grow big, grow strong, and we'll be one happy family._

"I'm telling you, the THING that fucked up Rolleye and Simmie was a damn COMBAT SYNTHETIC! Some freakin' corp weapons platform gussied up as a girl! The corps musta imported it in and slipped it into the colony to test it...or worse! Kessler's complained about the 'colonists getting uppity' before! Maybe they mean to quietly take us all down with this thing!"

"You're always going on about the Company bringing in exotics to take care of the 'problem', Shaggy! Face it, Rolleye bit off more than he could chew and got hammered for it, and you ran like an Earth-rat with your tail between your legs! So shut your piehole and go away!"

"Actually, Dean, Shaggy might have a point, for once. "

"Since when do you get off defending a loser like Shaggy, Doc?"

"Since that ship arrived yesterday. By Shaggy's description, that lady he ran into got off it with two other people. Supposedly technicians, but they sure don't act like them. Unless they're big corps times, they were sure traveling in style for 'techs, but they've been snooping around the colony rather than staying up at the corporate housing 'plex. Instead, one of them wanders into the MishMash? Either that lady was damned stupid or looking for a fight."

"You think Shaggy's actually RIGHT?"

"Corps have been known to do uglier things than slipping in enforcers to shake up the working stiffs, Dean. And Rolleye, Simmie, Batman, and Kurs all look like they got walllooped by something MEAN."

"Okay, okay; I still not believin' the Company would bring in a combat team just to take down the likes of Rolleye and scare Shaggy, but keep an eye on the newbies. If it IS a corp takedown or weapons test on us, I don't wanna be caught with pants down."

 _Let's see. More colonies dropping off the air, bans on travel to and from several systems, including some of those missing colonies. Quarantine cited in some cases, maybe even genuine disease in some of them. Yeah, Bugs or Hunters, maybe even the damn Space Jockeys, whoever they are. CMC reclaiming a few of them, but with large casualties...double or triple those figures for the civilian losses. The national governments were calling for bigger defense budgets, there was a lot more recruitment advertising going on, and the ICC was pondering new trade taxes to pay for security. Rumors of new weapons being deployed in the field; hah! Wonder if I had any input on those? Not that I'm likely to ever know, or get credit._

Overall, if one read between the obvious propaganda and the unofficial nay-sayers, the truth was probably this; the CMC was spread dangerously thin, the line was holding just barely, and the ICC was quietly praying that nobody else unexpectedly jumped onto the bandwagon against Humanity.

Nanami then skimmed the corporate news; a merger here, a breakup there, minor fluctuations in stock, but the big fish seemed unaffected by war or plague. Surge in defense contracts, but that was to be expected.

Yutani-Umbrella activity remained quiet, their latest stock figures and analysis unremarkable and noncommittal. No clues there, but to a cynical observer inactivity suggested bad times indeed if they weren't trumpeting expansion.

Finally she finished skimming, and booted up another comm function at her rented work station.

"Okay, let's see...(*click*click*click*clat*)" To: Professor Masamichi Fujisawa, University of New Tokyo. Hey, Prof! Doubt you expected to hear from one of the old gang like this! I can't go into detail about what I've been up to and where I've been, but I find myself remembering old times. You remember old Prof. Xavier's lectures on evolution? How it took a slow and steady course, but sometimes suddenly made unexpected leaps and bounds? I sometimes feel like I'm living that lecture all over again..."

Ranma smiled confidently as he and Kodachi walked onto the farm at the edge of the town. Among the more pleasant surprises that came with his new mutated status was near perfect recall, something he'd put to good use studying the records, files, tutorials, and instruction manuals in an attempt to become something more than helpless in the new, future world in which he found himself. While he still lacked in actual practical knowledge, at least he could fake it, and if there was one thing his father, or rather his previous incarnation's father, had taught him to do well, besides the martial arts, it was how to lie, cheat, steal and run a decent confidence job. He snorted. Yeah, real need to know skills for a true and honorable man amongst men.

"What was that, love?"

"Nothing. Just reflecting on my past a bit."

Kodachi nodded. If Ranma was having difficulty sorting through the contradictions between his self-image, memories, and actual skill set, then Kodachi had barely been able to scratch the surface. He'd freely admit that his old self wasn't exactly the poster child for mental stability. Kodachi's on the other hand was an outright loon, by the standards of anyone with... well... standards. He didn't envy her position, and didn't know how to help her. What was most depressing though, was that he was starting to believe she'd stopped trying, and was instead letting the bulk of her memories wither on the vine.

Ranma shook his head. He didn't think that was healthy, but on the same note he didn't have 16 years of built up bat shit crazy to dig through. It was a complicated solution and he had no idea how to deal with it. Nanami might know, but she was so obsessed on not mating that she was keeping herself locked up, which made it impossible to talk to her privately. Not that she didn't have her reasons. The pheromones that marked her as sexually receptive was like a drug, and if you put them in the same room alone for longer than 5 minutes and he wouldn't be able to keep his hands off of her, and while her body might be saying yes, he knew her mind really was saying no, and if there was one thing he didn't want to do, it was take advantage of a girl.

Putting his train of thought back on the matter at hand he considered the convince of this world. The terraforming of Mudpie had turned it into a interesting mixture of shallow seas, mud flats, blasted deserts, scattered mountains, all inter spaced with massive stretches of vast grassland not unlike those of the American West. In other words, it was almost perfect for growing grain and cattle, and there were already a number of entrepreneurs were already on the planet who'd seen the hidden potential that the corp that ran the place had glazed over in their quest for mineral wealth. Or at least that's what they said on the 'Move to Mudpie and Become a Rancher' adds he'd cross referenced. Either way, it meant that he could buy a large amount of meat and grain without looking suspicious.

Looking over to Kodachi he frowned. This is where they split ways for the moment. He was going to deal with the Free Traders and she was going to hit up the local market and buy as much as she could get away with. They were in the same area, but even still he didn't feel entirely comfortable letting his pregnant mate run off on a alien world without him to protect her.

"Don't worry," she said, detecting his worry, "I can handle myself."

"I know, its just..."

Kodachi smiled and shushed him. "I'll be fine. I'll buy us take out."

Ranma smiled. That was a good suggestion. He was always up for food.

"Okay, just... stay safe."

"Don't worry. What's the worst that could happen?"

Ranma was a bit worried about using the free trader excuse when flying an executive transport. He didn't know it yet, but it was moments like this that he was eventually going to be thankful for the fact that the _Beagle_ was a supped up _Firefly_.

Had he gotten around to reading Jane's Starships of the Galaxy, he would have known that the _Firefly_ -class was an older model of medium transport that was almost omnipresent in the Rim systems in and around Alliance space, and was now becoming common enough elsewhere to still be on the business end of inconspicuous. Apparently while Carthy had spared little expense upgrading the ship from a busted old freighter to a top of the line personal transport, he'd made sure that it could still do a damn fine job masquerading as the former in a pinch, at least as long as no one looked under the hood or decided to ask too much questions about the hard wood paneling and all leather interior.

It was ironic then, that for all his worrying, that the only thing Ranma needed better to fit the wandering Free Trader mold was a trench coat and maybe a pair of really tight pants.

Honestly, had he really considered it, his biggest problem would probably be English. Nanami had spent a great deal of time using every means available to drill the English language into his head, and he'd gone to being able to ask where the bathroom was, kind a, to being able to converse. A major step up, but he still wasn't fluent. Still, he could hold his own, he hoped, as long as he didn't have to deal with any funky accents.

Talking a deep breath to banish the butterflies, Ranma walked through the front door of the trade post and walked up to the attractive but bored looking woman standing behind the counter. Taking a whiff of the air he was pleasantly surprised to discover from her scent that she was in her fertile period of the month, a fact which caused his blood to stir if just a little, though not as much as simply being within twenty meters of Nanami, and sure as hell not enough to make him do anything _stupid_.

"Greetings miss," he said giving her her best smile, as he turned the Saotome charm onto full blast.

"Weel, arenae we a charmer? Hoo can ah help ye the-day, sairrr?" The woman purred in a Scottish brogue thick enough to cut with a knife.

Ranma blinked. Then, he blinked again. "Excuse me? What was that?" he asked.

"Ah said, whit dae ye need?" she replied frowning slightly.

"Oh, sorry," Ranma replied, "My English is still..." he stumbled over the proper word for a moment, trying to get the point across while not looking like an idiot. "Raw."

"Och, ah see," She said with a smile. "Yoo're frae a body ay those ethic colonies whaur sassenach is a second leid. sae whaur ye frae 'en?"

Ranma blinked. "I'm sorry, but I didn't understand a word you just said."

"Och, dornt fash yerse, Ah gie 'at a lot," She paused for a moment, "Yoo're frae a body ay th' japanese colonies ah tak' it?"

Ranma blinked. He didn't understand a damn word she'd just said, save one, and hopefully it would be enough "Yeah! I'm Japanese."

"So do you understand me now," she asked switching to the language, speaking with complete fluency.

"Yeah," he sighed, "I understand ya. Couldn't understand a thing you said in English though."

"My parents were Scottish," she replied, "I'm told my accent is a bit thick. So what is it that you need?"

"Meat and grain," he replied.

She nodded and nodded to the screen. "Just fill that out and we'll get started."

Ranma nodded and quickly input the amount of food he could buy with the budget they'd agreed on. He'd chosen pre-slaughtered livestock as they didn't want to deal with live animals, and added a freezer shipping container to the list because while the _Beagle_ 's refrigerator was big, it wasn't that big.

He was pleasantly surprised by the low price of the food, he guessed there was a benefit to ordering in bulk, but he also made sure to over order. After all, he didn't know how his family would grow and it would look strange if he under ordered and there was that nice volume discount. In the end he found himself with almost 10 metric tons of meat and grain. It was a lot, but he'd think they manage. All else fails, they wouldn't have to buy much in the way of food for a year... maybe two.

Processing the order he look at the woman.

"Everything is in order, but you didn't give an account number..."

It was moments like this he was glad they found that huge wad of probably stolen money in Carthy's quarters on the ship.

"I'm paying in cash," he replied, pulling out a huge bundle of bills.

The look on the girl's face was down right comical.

Contrary to Ranma's concerns, Kodachi WAS sorting through her past life memories. Admittedly, he was correct that she had peeked at a few of them and backed off immediately, but more innocuous paths of memory she freely embraced. Still, where Doctor Hannibal Lector would go on about a 'mind palace' even as he gleefully savaged his victims, Kodachi Kuno walked hers with the caution of a self-taught bomb disposal expert trying to pick her way through a minefield with only a knife and a stick at hand. Her memories, in the past, had the unpleasant tendency to leap out in ambush from dark closets where it was thought they were locked away.

Others, however, unexpectedly popped up like forgotten old friends, summoned by some subtle prompt.

The smell of earthy produce from the open air market in the colony was one such cue. Even before she knew exactly where the market was, her enhanced sense of smell caught the aroma of turned earth, lush vegetation, dried stalks, and plump vegetables.

And that reminded her. Kodachi had had an interest in growing things. In her last life, the times she spent in her green house were the few times the 'Black Rose' could truly claim to have been at peace with herself. Plants didn't judge, didn't run away, and if treated right and maintained with care, didn't wither and die on one.

And so it was that she followed her nose to the farmers' market. As much as Kessler Corporation might want to regulate food production and processing, they quit trying to prevent the free agronomists from holding an open-air market for their produce. Actually, the market made for good public relations; the rustic establishment bespoke of a certain colonial spirit and rude prosperity that appealed to many would-be colonists. The open stalls filled with fresh produce, next to the refrigerated meat lockers(looked over and pruned by the health inspectors), boasted of plenty, and had appeared on more than a few colonial prospectuses meant to lure immigration to an otherwise unprepossessing world.

Kodachi walked in and breathed deep, losing herself in it all.

Then with a vengeance, she began to SHOP.

The selection of produce might be rather limited compared to what 20th-century Tokyo supermarkets might have offered, with access to Asia's(and the Americas') agricultural bounty, but it was still substantial. Knowing her Ranma-san would be stocking up on grains and meat, she went after more specialty meats and produce. Stable, nutrient-rich, produce like avocado, squash, vitamin-C rich citrus, tubers, onions, greens, dried mushrooms, cheese, dried, canned, and preserved fruit, pickled vegetables, smoked and preserved meats. While she saw few of the ethnic- and region-specific foods she'd grown up with, Kodachi recognized enough of the staples to be satisfied with the selection.

Her genetic makeup might be composed of mostly predatory species(certainly, nobody had observed the xenomorphs eating their veggies), but Kodachi understood the need for a balanced diet; fiber and minerals that animal flesh couldn't provide (though Nanami had once commented that their hybrid physiologies could probably make do chewing on the house wiring). Besides, her humanity was craving something ELSE, and those fruits and vegetables just looked SO good.

Another part of Kodachi's mind briefly contemplated what ELSE could be done with some fruit, especially lemon, and lush vegetables before it was shushed down. However, Kodachi filed the thought away for later, with a grin.

Even with those thoughts in mind, she barely gave a second glance to the many hearty, muscular, farmers working around her. She quickly assessed them and found them no equal or better to her own chosen mate.

The few single(and a very few already married) men who made a pass at the attractive Asian woman perusing the market with almost predatory glee only got far enough to find themselves subjected to a scathing analytical stare that quickly assessed them, then silently gave them warning. They wisely backed off, seeing something in the stare that didn't like them and deflated their self-image with haughty criticality.

The regular stall keepers who minded their own business, on the other hand, found themselves subjected to a barrage of questions, seeing their produce thumped, poked, and prodded, and, if they were lucky, found themselves rather richer with a big order placed. Baskets and bags began to fill, a cart pulled up, delivery to the spaceport arranged, and farmers took notice of the exchange of money. More produce began to come out.

Though she had rarely ever done so, going to market like a commoner, or a housewife, to shop for her dinner, Kodachi knew good vegetation and quality food. And she would not settle for anything less than quality for her money. In its own way, her aristocratic upbringing had prepared her as much for trading as Ranma's original-life upbringing on the road had prepared him to be a trader in bulk. Having enhanced senses that could detect the slightest hint of rot also helped. She was actually enjoying this.

She gestured to the stockgirl she'd dragooned into her service; they'd need another cart.

Some distance away, two figures watched the shopper intently. Ironically, while Rolleye and his little crew might have stumbled into Nanami when she was trying NOT to broadcast that she had money, these two, even knowing that the target of their attentions HAD money, and was spending it quite freely, were under orders not to try to get it.

Besides, even if they had muscled SOME of the farmers in the market, their organization didn't have ALL of them cowed. And farmers tended to get INTENSE about those who got between them and a paying customer.

Out beyond Ceti Alpha Seven's atmosphere, even farther out near the gas giant Ceti Alpha Nine, something(s) else moved, contemplating their OWN shopping.

Mudpie was rich in minerals, mostly industrial feedstocks of oxides and salts that wouldn't cause a real gold rush, yet were still in demand by terraformers and industry, but more recent and confidential corporate surveys had determined there were sizable and easily accessible deposits of rare earths among its sands.

Gadolinium, cerium, samarium, dysprosium, to name a few. All elements with high technology applications. Even vital to high-tech manufacturing.

Kessler Corporation had already begun quietly scrapping up the stuff and stockpiling it for shipment. Among the heaps and piles of bulldozed-up alkalines and silicates were quantities of more precious minerals, awaiting refinement and transport when the Kessler execs thought they could get the right price for it.

Pity those confidential corporate reports had been intercepted and decrypted, the revelations in them laid bare. As too, were the security capabilities of Kessler Corporation.

There were those who relied on high technology for their livelihood, and had no interest in paying fair market price for the materials necessary to maintain it. Those piles of unrefined gadolinium, cerium, samarium, dysprosium, and promethium were, in their way, as mouthwatering to those with a high-tech appetite as any pile of produce in the Mudpie open market.

"Sleeper sat just registered a hit in the Alpha Ceti system."

"Oh?"

"It's our missing bird."

"Alpha Ceti? That's a few days away, but it's a solid lead. Seems like SOMEBODY was trying to be clever. Set course and tell the crew to prepare for hiber."

*CLANK*CLANK*CLANK*CLANK*

"Man, I'm booorrrrrrreeeeeddddd...erk!"

"Do . NOT. Ever. Fucking. Say. That."

"What?! All I said was that I was bor-ahhk! What was THAT for?!"

"Yeah, Chief Cho? Why you on Schmidt's case?"

"What did I just say?! I'll excuse it once because you're new to the job. I'll also say this once; you do NOT want this job to get interesting. Ever. I've had interesting jobs. I'm fucking scared of interesting jobs. Interesting jobs in our line of work typically mean screaming and dying and running and pleading to gods that don't listen. I'll take boring any day over interesting. Just stick to polishing your burner rifle, checking on the EDs, and make sure you've done everything to insure that your job REMAINS boring. The Company doesn't want any surprises. _I _ don't want any surprises! And you will NOT tempt fate with stupid remarks like that, however heartfelt you feel they may be, got it!?"

"All right, Chief Cho!"

Behind the Alpha Ceti Seven Hub Patrol security foot team, a small crowd was gathering around the communications center.

Nanami blinked in surprise as she exited the inner comms center. She couldn't help but wonder what was going on. Did they just get the newest bulk upload from the major porn sites or something? Walking through the crowd she slowly tensed up. While many of the people were flirting with each other, men with women, men with men, women with women, she felt that an disproportionate number of eyes were on her.

"Hey," the clerk she talked to said with a bit of a stammer to his voice, "Would you like to get something to eat?"

Nanami frowned slightly. He was looking at her with unveiled lust, and she couldn't help but analyze him as a potential mate, cataloging his appearance as if her was a laboratory specimen. He was okay looking but he was physically unexceptional, seemed emotionally unsure, and while his job wasn't one any moron could do, it sure as hell wasn't anything challenging. In essence, he wasn't a worth her time.

"Not interested," she replied calmly, pushing her way past.

"Hey babe," another man, this one thick necked a physically imposing figure with a gravely voice dressed in black leather with heavy boots, looking rather like one of the thugs who accused her before. Big, dumb, and utterly unworthy.

"Go away" Nanami said with a literal growl backing her statement.

"Don't me like that babe," he said with a cocky smile, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Nanami hissed by instinct and grabbed his thumb and twisted. With a loud, wet snap the man was forced onto his kneels.

"Do not touch me!" she roared in anger, kicking him away. Turning to the other man, and some women, who were looking at her, she exclaimed, "All of you, back off! I'm not interested!"

Getting the point the crowd parted and she stormed off, eyebrow twitching. What the hell was going on, she wondered. Why were they all looking at her like this? It was like automatic reaction. There had to be something up. There was something up, and it was with her.

Pausing near the building she started to look over herself. Feeling around her body she felt an oily substance near her armpits. Taking whiff she cursed. It was a pheromonal excretion.

"Stupid!" she cursed, as she walked for the door, moving as fast as she could walk without attracting more attention to herself. "Stupid and lazy!"

When she'd left the Love Hotel she'd only done a quick rinse off to clean off the most visible signs of her personal time. While that would have been enough to clean off the signs of sex from a human female, she was no longer human. She was something else. While she didn't know much about the mitochondrial parasite or hunter genetics that may of may not have been introduced into thier genome, but from the old Project: SIL and Project: EVE records and the literal mountain of data on the Bugs, she knew both were highly pheromonal species.

With the SIL/EVE hybrids, she knew well that they were highly geared for reproduction, and were able to read the scent of most potential mates like an open book, as well being extremely sensitive to even the slightest clues and able to secrete a powerful pheromonal attractant to boost the lure of their already stunning looks. Bugs on the other hand communicated and even saw via pheromones, and were able to leave tags that could last for weeks. Combine that with the involuntary secretions of a hard up hybrid female who'd just blown off over a week of intense sexual frustration, and all the connected mating pheromones, without really without a heavy shower afterward, and you have a potential disaster waiting to happen.

In other words she was covered from in sexual attractant and needed to take a long shower and run her clothes through the washer two to three times just to make sure. Now, normally this would be humiliating but tolerable, if not for two facts. First, she didn't really want to be in the same room as Ranma like this. He was showing masterful self-control, but the last thing she wanted was to throw him into a rutt. That wouldn't be fair to either of them.

Worst of all was the fact that the Xenomorphs pheromonal signatures were well known these days. Due to their radar absorbent near black body carapaces, detection systems sensitive to their unique "scent" had been developed, based on their own unique vision sense. These sniffers were now common in most common smart weapons and security systems. It wasn't enough to eliminate their infamous stealth abilities, but it was enough to reduce it enough to change them from uncontested nightmare to something that could be death with.

She already was rather sure that their bodies didn't smell Xenomorph in normal conditions to set off the sniffers, bathed in her own mating pheromones she was naturally somewhat edgy. Even if she didn't have enough 'bug' in her to register as one of the black on black nightmares, there was still a chance that one might err on the side of caution and detect her as a non-human.

With this in mind, she stormed through the exit and double timed for the ship, anxious to decontaminate before things went completely to hell. Unfortunately for her, fate had different plans, for as she turned the corner to the main road to the space port she found herself face to face with a small group of armed security and one really big, really intimidating law enforcement robot.

As a matter of protocol, this robot, an ED-290XLP, a later model of OCPs venerable ED-200 line of Combat and Security droid scanned the woman in front of it, checking for threats such as weapons. Detecting an intense pheromonal signature, it cross referenced it across its resulting data was contradictory, detecting as human, but also containing a faint Xenomorphic signature, traces of Predator, and a good deal of anonymous to raise a number of Level Yellow Increased Alertness Flags without putting into full Level Red Combat Alert status. Not used to having so many potential danger warnings compound upon one individual, the Enforcement Droid found that it did not have a protocol on hand to deal with the situation. As such, the unit queried its Bio-processor for a decision.

While the bio-processor in the ED-290 series was cheap, this savings came with a trade off. Most of the 290's decision making was handled by a series of simple pre-programed functions. In cases where this was not sufficient, a gumball sized culture of cloned brain tissue sat in the center of the armored frame, and make up the dedicated judgment center of the ED-290's AI control system. While superior to the notoriously buggy software based fuzzy logic system used in most earlier ED models, it was far from perfect. The Biological elements required both life support to maintain, and it was rightfully infamous for being profoundly _stupid_. While an improvement, they were still infamous in their own right for their complete lack of empathy, irrational conclusions, chaotic decision making, and their tendency to err on the side of excessive physical violence.

In retrospect the OCP board probably regretted their decision to base the growth cultures on the harvested brain tissue of convicted murderers, not that they'd ever admit it.

The query process lasted for all of three seconds before the ED-290XLP came to a decision. In criminal cases so many compounding factors would systematically raise the threat level of the target, and with so many danger flags, it might be best to treat the subject as a Level Red threat. In other words, when in doubt, shoot it.

"WARNING!" The combat robot announced in its trademarked loud, and imposing voice as it readied the the feeds to its three caseless 10mm machine guns and racked a shell into its 30mm gernade launcher. "NON-HUMAN TARGET DETECTED!"

For her part, Nanami only had one thing to say.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!"

She ran back around the corner as the ED-290 gave its own witty retort: three bursts of machine gun fire that all but shredded the corner of the building, where she'd been standing.

Seeing no reason to give up, the machine stormed off in pursuit, leaving a dazed and confused Schmidt behind to gawking as it began its rampage.

Nanami sprinted like the hounds of hell were on her heels.

This was, in her opinion, becoming a wholly unwelcome and entirely too frequent occurrence in her life.

Still, she preferred the heart-in-mouth terror, headlong rush, and adrenaline burn to being butchered by a piece of idiotically homicidal hardware. OCP's ED-200 series of military hardware platforms had a widespread reputation for being devastatingly effective in combat, but they also had a notorious rep as the butt of a great many nervous jokes about their hair-trigger responses and less than discriminating targeting abilities. That was part of the reason they hadn't been deployed as security at the Repository. Even the Colonial Marines acknowledged that the best way to deploy EDs (which, she'd heard, meant 'Everybody Dies' among the Marines) was to drop them into a combat zone and write off any non-targets left in the area as collateral damage.

NOT what she wanted in her obituary.

Neither did she want 'Xenomorph Mutant'.

Behind her she could hear the sound of clanging actuators, heavy footfalls, whining servos, and farther back, somebody yelling at somebody else called 'Schmidt' about shutting the thing the hell off. She'd agree with that last if not for the crack of heavy machine gun rounds zipping over her head or behind her.

She ran around a corner and suddenly skidded to a halt, quietly cursing as she did so.

Of COURSE she had to make a turn into a dead end. Twenty-five foot tall prefab modloc plascrete framed the walls of the alley, no doors, no windows, no way out except back.

*CLANK*WHIRR*CLANK*CLANK*"NON-HUMAN TARGET ACQUIR-"

 _Oh gee, how'd I get up here?_

 _Oh, right. I jumped._

Nanami looked down the other side of the wall, saw a even greater drop into what looked like a canal drainage system. Looked back and saw mechanical movement down the way she'd come. Felt the shudder through her legs as something big and heavy hit the wall under her.

 _Well, I got up here. Figure I can get back down._

She leapt.

Ranma had been eyeing a local abandoned strip-mining pit as a good place to practice some of the more devastating moves he recalled in his past life; chi projection, Breaking Point, life force-pumped moves, all things he wanted to know if he could (still) do, what with his radically altered physique. Any new or old tricks he could acquire might be the difference between life and death.

He'd found a good spot when the sense of imminent danger had flashed through his mind. He recognized the source; _Nanami._

He also felt Kodachi's alarmed mental query through their shared link.

 _It's not my fault!_ Ranma tried to communicate.

Nevertheless, he dropped his practice and took off for town as fast as he could.

Roof-hopping, it seemed, was something he COULD still do.

Kodachi had finished up her food shopping, having arranged delivery to the _Beagle_ (and incidentally generously tipping the stockgirl), and had been browsing in a hardware store, looking at some steel cable and ribbon stock, a half-formed idea or two in her head, when she had picked up the alarm. Hastily she made a few last moment purchases, excused herself , and ran outside, looking for a vacant stretch of unwatched street or alley .

Within moments she too had taken to the rooftops.

Roof-hopping, it also seemed, was something she remembered how to do as well.

Moments later, two nondescript men came out onto the street from where they'd been shadowing the woman off the newly arrived ship, as per their orders.

"Huh?! Where'd she go? Awww man, we LOST her?"

"Well, we better backtrack to the 'port and hope we can pick her up again, or the boss is goin' to be righteously PISSED."

Security Patrol Chief Cho looked at the alleyway and the large HOLE torn in the end of the end. With a cold menace that even an ED-290 could admire, his glare swiveled on the hapless Schmidt.

The aforementioned man nervously eyed his superior officer, noted the man's fingering of the trigger on his USM-101 burner shockrifle, and gulped.

"I thought I told you to shut the thing off!"

"Ah, I thought I did! I'm pretty sure I did!"

Cho looked back at the roughly ED-shaped and -sized hole in the reinforced concrete, the rest of the patrol crowded around it, looking through into the concrete-sided drainage canal beyond, filled with murky run-off from one of Mudpie's frequent thundersquals. There was no trace of either the robot or the woman the thing had gone rampaging after.

"Well, I'm pretty sure you DIDN'T."

Schmidt almost countered he HAD felt the kill-switch slide home when he'd punched it, but it's hard to mount a defense based on that when there's more compelling evidence to the contrary gaping next to you. So he tried the next best thing.

"Maybe it fell in the river and drowned?"

Cho tiredly sighed and decided to let Schmidt a LITTLE off the hook. "Doubt it. I'm going to have call this in and inform Central we got a possible robot rampage on our hands. The rest of you, fan out and start searching; maybe newbie's right and all we have to do is wait for a hook-and-dredge crew to recover a great big rock on the bottom, but I ain't taking any chances. Central's going to want to be on alert if we got a killer robot situation."

And what was with that bunch of guys milling around back there? They'd followed the patrol since the chase had started. Cho shook his head; so much for covering up THIS incident if they already had an audience.

High above, a stealthed blackbody ghosted into the upper atmosphere, the intelligence aboard making final adjustments for its atmospheric reentry. It had slipped unnoticed through the outer traffic control with ease. It also took the opportunity to conduct last minute surveys of its targets, taking note of the number of spacecraft down, the deposition of vehicles, activity around the refineries, and some such.

It was as the earlier scouts had determined. Just a sleepy little colony, not expecting any trouble, and without any reason to raise an alarm.

The element of surprise would make its mission a whole lot easier.

Having collected all the relevant information, the small spacecraft simple intelligence began to calculate its collected data. Based on centuries of observed experience it quickly calculated the perfect target and launched its cargo.

With the sole reason for its existence being completed, the drone overloaded its plasma reactor and vanished, completely vaporised in a small burst of heat and radiation that reduced 98% of its structural mass to vapor.

Below, its cargo continued to free fall, protected by a rudimentary pod and guided by simple orders given by its mothership moments prior to its self-destruction. The target was a vast ranch located almost 50 kilometers from the main settlement, populated by only a half-dozen cowboys and literally hundreds of Texas Longhorn Cattle, and located less than 15 kilometers from a played out mine. Large and isolated with perfectly located cover. In other words, completely perfect.

Landing in the midst of the herd with a gentle thud the pod opened its side panels and violently disgorged its cargo. Moments later it slammed on its thrusters and detonated them at a height of almost 40 kilometers, destroying every trace of what it had left behind.

Back on the ground, the bull of the herd started back towards the landing spot, and nudged one of the four, leathery objects the pod had left behind before it too had self-destructed above.

Spurred to activity by the physical contact, the pod opened. Sensing danger, the bull lowered its horns, but its defensive maneuver was for naught as the egg's ten-legged content struck with lighting speeds, grabbing onto its face and wrapping its tail around its neck. In a moment, the bull struck the ground unconscious, as the Facehugger's tube forced an embryo down its throat to gestate.

Spurred on by the pheromonal cues of the first, the other three eggs opened and their contents attacked, beginning the first stages of what would probably become a major infestation.

Nanami shivered as she pulled herself out of the muck of the sewer trail and up onto the edge of the canal, shaking herself dry and breathing out a long sigh of relief at having finally shaken off the crazed robot.

The telepathic technician leaned against some of the concrete as she tried to shake herself dry and clean(er). Not to mention shaking herself clear of the uncomfortable tingle of a threat she felt in the back of her mind, obviously a reaction to the near death experience she'd just had.

About that time, the muck behind her erupted into a large green wave as something struck down into water behind her like a meteor.

"Proceeding with eradication of non-human lifeform."

Not even bothering to turn around, Nanami surged forward as a cascade of bullets pitted the concrete around, and now just behind her. Dodging around an obstruction she sprinted as fast as she could.

Nanami wasn't up to the levels Ranma or Kodachi could get to, but she was easily capable of what a human professional athlete could do, only for much longer periods. She'd dodged around a second obstruction, a small boulder around the edge of the construction, by the time the ED-290 was coming around the first.

Still, it was coming after her.

A mistep sent her stumbling in a painful roll which let the monster robot cut some of the space between them. In fact, it almost obliterated her with a small rocket that she barely avoided in getting to her feet. Even then it still pushed her forward more than four yards and seared her skin.

Landing and managing somehow to keep her feet, Nanami tried to fight the urge to scream like a little kid as she continued running with only a blindered idea of what lay ahead, until finally, after many turns, she found herself turning a corner and finding herself at the start of what looked to be a busy street full of people.

"Oh crap," Nanami said as she realized that she'd just trained the robot into a smorgasbord of targets.

As Nanami's adrenaline level rose, she began to think less with her mind and more with her instinct. Millions of years of human evolution had created this fight or flight reaction, but what had not been counted on was the addition of genetic code from two of the most aggressive and violent species ever to evolve. This was enough to transform her from a frightened human girl to a dangerous predator, backed into a corner, and she reacted like one.

Nanami hissed in aggravation as she turned away from the crowd. While she knew her best best was to use the crowd for cover, she also knew that attracting attention would be a poor option. It would force her to expose her cover and she'd go from being hunted by one rampaging robot to an entire team of human soldiers. One false move could magnify the threat one hundred fold, from a threat not only to her person, but a threat to Ranma, a threat to Kodachi, and a threat to their unborn child. It could become a threat to her entire species.

That could not be permitted.

Part of her mind also screamed that she did not want to be morally responsible for so many innocent deaths. Her instincts agreed with this statement as well, for while her own kind came first, she still was part human. She still was able to successfully breed with them, she was able to genetically convert them, and their presence provided her with safety in numbers. Their lives had value, not only intrinsically as dictated by morality, but functionally the continued survival of the human species was useful to her and her breed.

Fortunately she had a good guess of how to get away from the metal abomination. Most of these buildings were low and there was plenty of debris. She needed to stop thinking like a human being, and start thinking like a fucking bug.

Looking left and right she saw a short overhang on the third floor of a cinder block building and knelt down, jumping a good 15 feet into the air, rebounding off the opposing wall, and catching the ledge with one hand and pulling herself up as if her 50 kilograms of body weight was completely non-existent.

Glancing back, she smiled as the monstrous machine seemed to be searching for her and had not yet realized she'd jumped onto the roof. Not being one to look a gift horse in the mouth, she shrunk out of view and jumped across to the next roof.

"So, our 'mad robot' popped up in front of a crowd, caused a bit of a scare, then disappeared again?"

"According to the reports. It seemed to backtrack then ran back into the canal. Didn't come up on the other side."

"Great, so we still may have a piece of aberrant hardware running around."

"Yep."

"I'm beginning to agree with that man Cho; this situation mucks."

"What are we going to do about it?"

"Well, you know, this is as good a time as any to hold an exercise. Turn out the troops and roll out the vehicles for some field work. Warm up all the copters and get them airborne."

"Are you sure that's such a good idea, sir? Those birds are over thirty years old!"

"They're GMC-Sioux-40s! They're built tough, and I haven't heard any complaints from the crews! Shouldn't be anything wrong with them."

"Sir, I think you're under the misassumption that they're General Motors Corporation-build sir. They're not. 'GMC' in this case stands for -Galactic Mining Corporation-, remember? They folded thirty years ago after ICC came down on them and Pyrite Corp for their little war? We bought their equipment because it was at liquidation sale prices?"

"Right. Well, they should still be good for a simple search and recon. It's just one robot after all. The birds should be good for that at least, and they'll look impressive to the civilians, especially if the racks are loaded."

"I still think we should have bought Hornets or Hawks to replace those old eggbeaters. At least something from Militech or Araska!"

"Might as well wish for Vultures! At what Kessler's laid out for our heavy equipment? We're lucky they had copters here already. Get the boys and girls moving; I'll phone the mayor-CEO and let her know we'll be holding a full-dress hot-start exercise or something to cover the mad robot business. I'll...I'll tell her that the ED-290 was part of our preparedness exercises. We'll put on a show for the civilians, get in some practice, scape some dust off the guns, and maybe find that piece of junk."

Nanami hauled herself up the building cornice, chanced a look around...Nobody seemed to have followed her, or even noticed her, though a lack of streams of tracer fire homing in at her, or shouts to get the pitchforks and torches didn't necessarily mean that she HADN'T been noticed.

She was ALMOST exhausted enough that the sudden apparent materialization of two presences next to her might have startled her into falling off the roof, if she hadn't 'felt' them beforehand.

"You okay?" Ranma asked.

Next to him Kodachi looked at her with concern.

Nanami almost hated them for their seemingly fresh appearance and lack of fatigue for apparently having run all the way across town after her. Except that she could feel the real concern washing over her from them through their link.

"Yeah, I'm okay...had a run in with some hardware that was more perceptive than most. Look, let's just get back to the ship; I'll tell you all about it there. But we're going to have to be REAL careful from here on out."

 _*sniff*sniff*_ "Geez, you smell bad!"

The Jusenkyo curse might be gone, but there are other curses that apparently withstand the test of time; Saotome foot-in-mouth is apparently one of them.

Nanami whirled on the male hybrid with murder in her eyes. Instincts both human and alien had Ranma frantically backpedaling.

But Nanami's ire subsided as her wit returned. "Yeah, thanks, but actually I'd rather smell of an open sewer than what I WAS smelling of. Look, let's just go back to the ship...I need a beer in ten bottles and something to eat."

Kodachi grinned at that.

"Hope you like fresh produce."

"Right now I could bite through a Bug. And what's with that roll of steel ribbon you got?"

"I'll show you later.

Nanami sighed in relief as the ramp door to the _Beagle_ slammed shut behind her. Since that damned Enforcement Droid had showed up she'd been one seething ball of tension. It had been even worse than being on the damned Repository. There she'd had little idea what she was really capable of and had defenders in the form of her two fellow hybrids. In this case, not only was she alone but she was fully aware of her capabilities and couldn't use them. It had felt like she'd been forced to fight for her life with her hands tied behind her back.

It sucked!

Seeing as he clothes were already ruined by the chaotic mix of fire, fragments, and filthy, rancid water Nanami found herself completely unconcerned with their state. After all, it would be hard to ruin them any worse than they were. With this in mind, she made herself comfortable.

Under her clothing, her flesh turned from human pale to a semi-translucent black, and changed to rubbery texture of her hybrid skin, while several points of her body grew plates of strategically placed chitinous silicate armor. Several spines erupted from the cloth, and her tail grew in, its razor bladed end tearing through her already ruined dress. Not even her shoes were safe as the razor sharp talons tore through the stained, befouled leather as if it wasn't even there. Stretching to allow her joints to enjoy their liberation, she casually tore the damp, tattered rags that had once been clothing from her armored form and let them fall to the ground.

Smelling a small, but intriguing spike of male musk behind her, which signified Ranma's interest in her, she turned about and looked at the male hybrid, and crossed her arms under her breasts. Looking at him with a pair of tired, slitted, golden eyes she left no argument. "Ranma, I'm tired, I'm dirty, I'm stressed out, and I am not in the mood to even consider it."

Shrugging, the male simply said, "Fair enough. Never seen you like this before though, and I have to say you look really good."

The skin around her face took on a slightly reddish tone as her acidic blood rushed to her surface capillaries in a most human manner. This she realized belatedly, was not only the first time she'd taken her natural form around them, but it was the first time she'd stood before them naked. She even had to fight down several dirty thoughts ran through her mind about a group shower, but she squashed them. She needed stress relief, but not that kind!

"Um, thanks..." she said, feeling a bit like the Prime Rib at an all you can eat buffet.

Ranma smiled, letting his eyes linger appreciatively over her lithe, predatory form for a moment before smiling kindly, his face surprisingly devoid of lust for someone with their normally overpowering sex drive. "Listen, Nanami, you had a tough day. Just take your shower and we'll get dinner started, okay?"

Nanami's face softened slightly. "Thanks, Ranma," she replied.

As Nanami left Ranma could not keep his eyes off of the sensuous sway of her pert rear, her long, sexy armored tail serving to frame it like a picture. Mentally he catalogued what he saw. Her form was a bit less refined than Kodachi's. A bit more armor, a bit more spikes, and a bit more feral, but lacking the speed and grace of his mate. Still though, the naked aggression left unspoken in the generous curves and vicious sharp points of her form in her form gave her a fierce beauty all her own.

In all honestly, it was not too different from his own form, with its emphasis on an effective balance between speed and power, though more primitive as it lacked lacked the personal adaptations he and Kodachi has developed for themselves. Still, with some training he could see her becoming a terrifying combatant.

"You desire her," Kodachi said, with a bit of annoyance in her voice. "Don't deny it."

"Yeah," Ranma admitted. "I can't help it."

Kodachi smiled as she slipped out of her clothes and shifted to her own natural form, her long tentacles coiling into an imitation of her trade mark pony tail. "I just wanted to hear it," she said, "I am not angry. We're not human anymore, and as much as I'd like to say otherwise I find keeping to the social mores in which we were raised becoming more and more difficult, and feeling more and more... pointless."

Ranma shrugged. He really couldn't say the same. He'd been raised by his father and had long considered most of the lessons he'd been taught complete bullshit. Now he just felt that a few more of those lessons were slated for the bullshit pile. "If she's interested, I'm interested. I'm not going to force her or nothing. I'm used to dealing with unresolved sexual tension."

Kodachi grinned and pulled him into a passionate kiss. "If you have unresolved sexual tension, how about we resolve some before we get started on dinner?"

A feral grow escaped Ranma's throat. "Maybe later. You know how she gets when we're too close and get at it."

"Then she should just join in." Kodachi smiled and poked him on the chest. "Just don't forget who your number one is."

Ranma laughed and swept her off of her feet. "Alright, maybe she'll be able to stand a quicky."

In their cabin the two resurrectees lay together, their naked bodes laid alongside each other, basking in the afterglow of their consummated union.

Their lovemaking this time had been more restrained; with the knowledge of at least one offspring on the way, there wasn't such a drive to...rut... Their coupling had been no the less intense or pleasurable though. With a growing acceptance of what they were, the Hybrids had begun to explore the possibilities of their new bodies.

The slow sensuous stroking of tails down each others' bodies was just a part of it.

Ranma had proven particularly inventive, though Kodachi had reciprocated with a few inspirations of her own. And when it came to tailplay, Kodachi's experience with ribbons had a definite advantage.

To her satisfaction, she found that when she had pulled THOSE tricks out, she had driven her mate to blissful exhaustion. Though she could still feel him, semiconscious, through their shared link, his thoughts were languid, and of her.

However, that meant that she was still awake, and had time to ponder her own thoughts.

What memories of her dreams Kodachi could plumb were typically bad; nightmarish jumbles or delusional fantasies that did not encourage her to explore the roots of those recollections. At least not without caution. But Ranma was right; there might be knowledge there, knowledge worth recalling, if only to inform her of what NOT to do.

Parenting was one such field of knowledge, and a loaded one. Kodachi knew this much; she had NOT had a good childhood. A missing mother, an absentee father, a cold and empty house echoing with the madness and paranoia of a family gone wrong.

While Kodachi might well have given in to the driving instinctual imperatives that had been pounding in her head since she had 'awakened', something had given her pause of late.

Something Nanami had said about instinct earlier stuck in her thoughts. The young scientist's worry and fear had been palpable.

" _I'm serious, you two! We're packed with hardwired genetic imperatives of several species that rely less on conscious thought and more on raw survival instinct! You want to know what has me really worried? What upsets me the most? That everything I've experienced, everything I learned, everything I -AM-, won't amount to anything when faced with that pressure! That I'll just give in to instincts because it's EASY!"_

Nanami's fear was real, writ large on her features, and in the thoughts she was projecting through their link. It was part of the wall she'd thrown up between herself and her two companions. Admittedly of late, she'd been less fearful and more forthcoming, but that fear still lingered.

It was for that reason that Ranma and Kodachi had consciously tried to isolate their lovemaking to only their own two shared minds, as consciously as they'd worked on pleasuring each other. It seemed to have worked; there hadn't been any complaints from Nanami's distant cabin.

Still, her fears had infected Kodachi. Kodachi admitted her own experiences with parenting left her with the maternal abilities of a goldfish, but she wasn't about to let instincts take over. Such reliance was insulting and demeaning.

 _My children will not be animals, raised on instinct! They are born of two great bloodlines, and I will not turn them out like fish spawn! Their legacy will not be simply of our bodies, but of our minds as well!_

She remembered the dinner they'd had in the ship's galley; not merely ripping into the meats and vegetables they'd bought, but a civilized meal they'd worked on together, Ranma exhibiting an unexpected culinary skill with unfamiliar ingredients, Kodachi contributing her own knowledge, and even Nanami adding her own abilities to a feast that was more than mere fodder, refueling, or sustenance. It had been centerpiece for their conversation, a sharing of the day's experiences. Then, while Nanami had retreated to her cabin, Kodachi and Ranma had gone upstairs to watch through the ship's ports the nighttime show of the local militia flying helicopters over the town, looking for something. They apparently didn't find it, though the airshow had been amusing nevertheless, before the two hybrids had gone on to more carnal distractions.

Did animals take such simple joy in the preparation of food, in elaborations of the act of feeding, of gathering and communicating, in watching events? Kodachi thought not.

 _No, Nanami-san, there will be more to our children than mere survival. Animals survive and are satisfied with that! I want more for my children! I want them to be better than I am, to have dreams they aren't afraid of!_

Sensing her thoughts, Ranma murmured reassuringly in her ear, while his tail twined up protectively around her waist and abdomen.

Assured that she wasn't alone in this, Kodachi dared let her thoughts surge further ahead, as she descended into sleep.

 _For now they had to think of survival, learning new ways and new tools of the age, picking up what they could and needed to get by, but in time... In time her children, and Nanami's as well, when she came around and truly joined their union, would do more. They wouldn't be mere scavengers, hunters on the fringes of society, picking at the edges of Human civilization. They'd build their own society, one that was a testament to what their parents were. One that would make them more than the sum of their hybridized parts._

 _It wasn't delusion that rose in her mind, fogged by animal lusts and primordial drives, but something sharper and more reasoned. Images rose clear and beautiful in her thoughts, blossoming like flowers; her children would be architects and creators and so much more, and they'd raise their castles and walk unashamedly and unafraid among the stars._

Kodachi drifted off to sleep walking the clean and gleaming streets of the cities her children would one day build.

In her cabin, a restless, semiconscious, fitful Nanami caught the images of flowing lines and arches and shining avenues under starlit skies without a trace of chattering hunger or fear and she knew peace as she finally drifted off to sleep, and some rather unabashedly naughty dreams...

"Son? You find what happened to those missing cattle? And what's with the dogs? Son? Answer up, boy! What's takin' ya-GAHHH!"

Within the mind-link, Kodachi and Ranma were politely trying to raise a screen between their activities and Nanami to add to the many layers of metal between them that would make ideal communication difficult.

If Nanami wanted to, she could cut through their walls like a knife through butter. The fact was, she had more than a few elements of human telepathic ability as well as the SIL splices, and those splices were acting like the spark that made a pilot light into an inferno.

However, most of that growing potential in Nanami was sitting unused, she hadn't flexed her muscles as it were. At the moment, she had no reason to. She didn't want to see what was going on in the other part of the ship.

It did leak through, though their more sophisticated experiments gave the emotions less of the feeling of an animalistic rut. Instead, Nanami was finding herself at the center of a pleasantly erotic dream.

Her, Makoto, Shayla Shayla and this 'Ifurita' she'd heard about once before going to the repository. She wasn't sure how she knew, but she knew this purple haired woman was that person. And equally sure that she wasn't as human as she looked.

Well, between Shayla's chi and Nanami's new genetics, they were even there.

A small smile, despite her recent frustrations on this subject, worked itself over her face as she traced slick black hands over Makoto's skin. Then sharing a breath kiss with Shayla, directed at working up Makoto.

Both she and Shayla were hetro, but, in this dream at least, they were willing to put on a show, though it took a bit of convincing for the red-head. Especially as they tried to draw in the obviously inexperienced Ifurita.

Nanami was just getting to the really good part, tail twitching as it started to form the converting stinger unconsciously, and then the chittering at the edge of her dream began.

Nanami slowed down, though her imaginary bed partners seemed not to notice, then she straightened up and looked around past the circle of light that was the only other mark of terrain in this dream.

Past that dark, Nanami saw movement. Black on black slickness.

"Hey, why did you..." Shayla was interrupted as a ten-legged monstrosity leaped out toward her face.

Nanami snapped awake gasping, not knowing if the facehugger in the dream had been caught or had managed to reach Shayla.

"Oh, still having nightmares from the Repository," she noted, sitting up and coming aware of a beeping that indicated someone was outside the ship.

Behind their screens and activity, Kodachi and Ranma hadn't yet noticed Nanami's nightmare or the intercom beep, so that left Nanami, who was still itching at a feeling of danger in the back of her mind.

Grabbing a night robe to cover herself and forcing herself into human form, Nanami sleepily worked her way down toward the cargo bay and opening the door to see who was there.

"Hello," the girl said hesistantly on seeing Nanami. "I didn't mean to wake you or anything. I have the rest of Miss Kodachi's order."

"Oh kay," Nanami said, rubbing at her eyes and looking toward the second large order of products that had come to the ship today.

"Have to remind Kodachi that we don't have unlimited funds," she thought with a sigh.

Turning back to the girl, she gestured up toward the cargo bay. Something was tickling the back of her mind: an echo of Kodachi's appreciation for this girl and her efforts.

"Bring it in," Nanami said. "Kodachi's busy at the moment."

"All right," the girl said nodding and moving toward the machine to drive it up into the cargo bay and start the off-loading.

Nanami started to help her, getting a good whiff of the shop-girl. Physically mature, still in the process of fully developing her brain, as most teens were. It struck her suddenly, that Kodachi would very much like to make sure this girl lived.

Still a little sleepy, and rattled for reasons she couldn't quite grasp, Nanami's control over her instincts were limited.

In the next moment, Nanami was shifting out of human again and a tail was striking rapidly into the girl's back. The scorpion like stinger pumping genetic material into her as she cried out.

Then Nanami's intellect snapped awake and came back to the reins. The tail pulled out quickly, hopefully quickly enough that there wasn't enough material to convert the girl.

"Wh...what are you?" the girl demanded hysterically as she stumbled back, one hand clutching her back where it had been stabbed and watching as Nanami returned to a humanoid form.

"Listen...sorry," Nanami said. "I didn't mean..."

But the girl, not showing the change of eyes that was the first symptom or linking to Nanami and the Saotome's collective either, was growing progressively more hysterical.

Again, Nanami let instinct direct her, reaching out mentally to the girl's mind and first shut off the panic. She was about to leave it at that when she started seeing a replay of the event that had just happened.

Before all she could do was sense stray thoughts and ambient attitudes. Now she was a full out telepath? Would that happen to the others as well? Or just her?

She didn't take time to think about it, instead quickly rewriting the girl's memory with a fabrication of her own. It was a heavily flawed fabrication, being Nanami's first attempt at such a thing, but it would stand against anyone not a telepath.

Nanami thought.

"Are you all right?" Nanami asked experimentally reaching out a hand to the girl to help her up.

"Umm, yeah," the girl said. "I must have fallen over something."

"Well, let's get this finished," Nanami said quickly.

The girl from the market, as she was driving home, didn't notice as her eyes shifted black. The dose she got was small due to Nanami's quick response to her instinctive action, but it was there. Pretty soon, Mudpie was going to have its own resident hybrid and not even that individual would know it for sometime.

At least not until the bugs started provoking an instinctual response.

Celes Victoria shook her head as she drive back from the Star Port. She was having a bitch of a time keeping her mind focused on the road. She had no idea what was wrong with her. Her stomach was swimming in her belly, her head was pounding, her shoulder ached, and she felt generally crappy beyond belief.

She even fell down in the middle of that ships cargo bay. Something had to be wrong with her. She needed to go to the doctor, she knew that much, but even staying on the road was so hard. Her head as pounding and her vision was so blurry that she could barely even see the road ahead of her. Fighting to even keep her eyes open she pulled over to the side of the road that connected the Star Port to the town proper and turned the key to her hover car.

Slowly the hum of the lift fans faded along with the comforting dull roar of the triple turbines that could propel her battered, but well loved, little sports car to almost ludicrous speeds when she needed to make those long runs to the ranches located way off the beaten path. With a light thud the X-34 landed on its tricycle undercarriage and she no longer had to worry about the frictionless vehicle getting away from her and slip sliding off of the road and into something dangerous.

Fighting to even keep her head up Celes reached into her pocket and started fumbling for her phone. She needed to call for help. She just felt so... so...

Panting for breath she felt her center of gravity slipping and attempted to brace herself with her arm, but she was too weak to support her own weight and fell stumbling into her passenger seat. Feeling like her entire body was asleep, she tried to call out for help but even her vocal cords refused to obey her, releasing only a low, pitiful squeak.

As her vision blurred, and everything faded to black, her befuddled mind was filled with terror. Was this it? Was she done for?

Several hours later, she awoke from her unplanned slumber and slowly lifted herself from her seat and rubbed her eyes and turned, looking towards the mid day sun.

Rubbing her eyes, Celes shook her head in surprise. When she'd stopped it had been late at night, the end of her shift, the last run before she went home, but now it was the middle of the day. That wasn't saying as much as it would on a planet with a more Earth normal rotation, but even with a 18 Standard Hour rotational cycle, passing out late in the evening and waking up just shy of noon time was still a reasonably long nap.

What really surprised her was that she didn't feel sick anymore. In fact, she didn't even feel any of the assorted aches and pains she should have gotten from sleeping for so long in such an awkward position. She actually felt good. No, scratch that. She felt beyond good. She felt great. No, she felt beyond great, she felt like a million credits! She felt...

Her stomach roared with almost comical volume.

She felt hungry. Really damned hungry. She felt 'eat now or starve to death' hungry. She needed to get something in her belly and fast.

Gunning her engine, Celes put all other concerns to the side. Going home wouldn't sate this hunger, not with the half gallon of milk and the half of a head of brown lettuce she had sitting in the fridge. She wanted food, she wanted _meat_ , and she wanted it right here and right now. Luckily there was a place in town where she could get that. So it was, without a second thought that she laid in a course for _Biggin Beefy's All Ya Can Eat BBQ Buffet_ , feeling like she could pack down a whole damned cow.

Professor Masamichi Fujisawa opened up his mail account. It had been a difficult morning and he was already on his third smoke. He personally wanted to choke several of his assistants and T.A's after the debacle with the A.I. core. The damn thing was now obsessed with serving the needs of his lead assistant. He leaned back and took another drag off his cigarette as the mail system authenticated his password. A small chuckle came from his lips as he looked at the messages.

He mumbled to him self, "No Miz is perfectly content with the size of my penis." He promptly deleted the message.

The message popped up and he mumbled to him self, "Doubt Miz would go for double penetration." Another swift click of the delete button.

This message was slightly more relevant yet he started to type, "Sorry Stan, I cannot grant an extension by mail please come to my office hours tomorrow or see me after class with the work you have completed. I remind you the paper was do two weeks ago."

A click of the send button sent hope and despair racing towards the undergraduate.

Fujisawa read the next message and cocked his head to the side, "Maybe, a few cup or two. Ah she'd kill me if I brought it up. Probably keep me sober for a month too." He quickly hit the delete button.

He mused to him self out loud, "Jeeze, now that is just mean."

He clicked on the offending message from an alleged Nanami Jinnai. It wouldn't be the first time a student had risen from the dead and joined the vast zombie horde of spammers. He hesitated to delete the offensive message part of him really wanted her to be alive. However, the professor in him knew better. He warned her when those head hunters came looking; graduate students like her just didn't get offers like that. Well they did but, the offers weren't because she was talented. It was because she was isolated and easy to manipulate. Any head-hunter worth their salt could see it in her. A dead brother, distant family at best and a slew of other flags both in public and less than private records set her up perfectly to disappear into some mega-corp lab. He'd seen plenty of good kids disappear just trying to pay off a their student loans.

With a sigh he clicked the message open. Then slid open the drawer by his left foot. The message took a while to load it really didn't matter to him at this point. The bottle rested easily in his hand as he unscrewed the lid. His eyes glossed over the message. Vague details on her past, a name dropped from her college records. He nodded at that detail; it was a nice touch and to finish and lead to the plea for money. Wait, he reread the message. No plea for money or invitations to a black balled planet or outpost. A massive encrypted file rested in the attached items list. He took one look at the size and whistled, several hundred gigs of compressed data. He eyed the file you could hide one hell of a virus in a file that big. His curiosity was peaked now and he checked the transmission data. A quick search on Ceti Alpha Seven turned up mostly nothing. Kessler Amalgamated Minerals made a few of the superconductive ceramics in the current project removing them from the shady competitor list. In fact they were a clean company by most standards. Well, as clean as a company in that line of work would get. Mining, minerals and prospecting were never a pretty business. He laughed to himself, four hundred years and spam had come along way.

He slowly took a hit from the bottle of Jack Danial's and started to type, "Nanami, good to hear from you. You would be surprised how often I hear from your brother. His research on Harvest is going well. He wrote the most moving obituary for you. I'm surprised you remembered Xavier's lecture you were always seemed to lean more towards Professor Eisenhardt's philosophy."

He paused and considered his words how would he get her to respond if it was her, "Miz sends her best, even if she is still holding a grudge over the water treatment experiment."

A small hand came across the back of the professors head, "Don't you dare send that."

"Bah, I'm just messing with them." He took another drink from the bottle, "It's a damn shitty thing those leaches do to grieving people." He clicked the send button on the half finished message.

Miz swatted him on the back of the head, "Nothing good is going to come from that. The techs are going to be breathing down your neck for replying to spam like that."

 **• It seems that our girl isn't quite a woman yet. Time to fix that. Driven by instict, she eats until she bursts and then finds a nice private place to enter her chrysalis.**

• After eating, Celes checks her voice mail and founds out everyone has been called in, even trainees like herself. Needless to say, Chief Cho is not amused by her lateness.

• As above but on the bright side, she finds the missing Enforcement Droid. On the not so bright side, it's trying to kill her.

• Back to the other Hybrids?

• More of Nanami's messages.

• Something Else.

 **Enforced Evolution** **: Rough Sprint to Maturity [** **Episode 230342** **]**

 **by** **Thrythlind**

People stared across the restaurant at particular table as the dishes around a particular customer clinked and clattered, a small mountain of ceramics and glass almost licked clean of barbecue sauce, chocolate sauce, ice cream, fat, grease or whatever was related to the particular food that was held in that particular dish.

The customer herself was fairly well known and acting far out of her normal behavior for the last few years. Celes Victoria's father had been security on the planet until a band of pirates with a grudge killed him and his wife.

Celes herself had been shot and almost died, and had lain there and watching as the pirates raped her mother's corpse.

What followed was the orphanage and two years of a growing violent temper until they had to turn her out into the street to protect the other children. If it hadn't been for Chief Cho reining her in, getting the market job and eventually security training, then she might have turned into something of a monster.

Instead, recently, she'd acquired the reputation of being quite helpful and harmless. Aside from a few people at the orphanage, almost nobody remembered that, at the age of eleven, she'd once put three kids in the hospital with various broken bones.

Now, she was devouring everything in front of her like a glutton. Stains unnoticed were splattered over her normally pristine clothing and skin showing the left overs of the candy, meat and other high calorie, high protein foods that had already gone down her throat.

Vague memories of the girl's troubled childhood started to bubble up amongst the people watching.

Finally, after two hours of a display that would have probably disgusted even the hybrids that she'd had such a life-changing encounter with, she stood up from the table, stomach visibly distended.

She stumbled away from the table and laid a sticky few paper credits on the cashier's table and walked out into the night with a short burp.

"What the hell am I doing?" she wondered out loud.

The question had come more than once or twice during her gorging, but she was too focused on easing her incredible hunger, even past the point where her stomach hurt, to notice.

Now she was having another urge. She wanted somewhere dark, secluded and lonely. She needed to do...something.

Passing by a wall, she leaned against it, clutching her stomach as a pang worked through her in compliant against the gross over eating. The rough sprint toward hybrid maturity didn't agree with what her body would prefer.

Had she been a full SIL splice, it would have been different. But in exchange for long-term survival of both species and individual, the Nerimian hybrids weren't built for the sprint. They could do it, but it was needlessly painful.

It should have been several weeks of increased eating and building up of calories before coming to this point. Not this disoriented, feverish gorging that made thinking difficult. Unfortunately, her changing metabolism reacted to the hormones in her system and triggered the latter.

Celes pulled away from the wall, leaving a sticky organic residue that had nothing in relation to the food she had just devoured, and might provoke some paranoid responses in anybody that had ever been in a Xenomorph hive.

Slowly, she staggered into the edges of town, toward an old abandoned processing center that had shut down quite a while ago. Nobody was there, which was exactly what she wanted right now.

Once inside the building, she dizzily pulled at her clothes, shucking off the jacket first. The pants slipped off almost tripping her up as she continued to walk forward. The under shirt was torn into strips of fabric behind her.

Already, her stomach was less distended than it had been, having passed much of her meal on down the digestive process. But, under her clothes, she was covered in a whitish sort of fluid that seemed to be seeping over her, flowing out of her pores and over her skin.

When her bra and panties were finally discarded, uselessly destroyed by her efforts to be free, she found a corner of corrugated steel and leaned against it, blackened fingernails spiking into the material. And she started to climb up into the darkened shadow of the debris strown and bewebbed building.

Backing herself against the corner, she started to come out of her daze as the whitish substance was thickening around her and sticking against the wall, leaving her trapped against the side. Looking about insanely, she started to cry out when it covered over her face and stuck to the rest of the goo.

There was some thrashing under the surface of the hardening cocoon for a few seconds until the natural sedatives of the substance calmed Celes down and sent her into a stasis, letting her mind drift into calming dreams.

Nanami sighed in supreme aggravation as she laid with her face buried leather couches that sat across from her personal domain, the ships gratuitously over-equipped medical bay. The ships lounge was theoretically open to everyone, but normally Ranma and Kodachi seemed to stick to the viewing room connected to the on the kitchen on upper level, looking out the big old sky light. Fine by her. She didn't have to watch them flirt and had the TV all to herself.

Not that there was anything to watch, though. The Info-Net on this planet was a joke, and there were only 157 broadcast stations, all of which were playing reruns. She was almost tempted to check the video library for something to watch. If there was one thing Carthy made sure of, it was that there was a complete entertainment collection to keep him busy. Problem was all of his favorites were crap and she was too tired to dig through his collection. True, even that expenditure of effort would be a step above watching old returns of the 22nd century remake of Charles Angels.

At the moment, she was in what she liked to call her her hybrid form, a transformation half way between original human appearance and her spiky and alien half-breed form. It was more utilitarian for relaxation than being in human form, having superior senses and the ever so functional tail that body lacked. Sure, it lacked some of the boons of her half breed form, such as the high level of physical resistance, the sensory tentacles, and massive ego boosting display value that came from being all sexy and spiky, but at least it didn't damage the upholstery. She could also get away with waring casual clothing as long as she accounted for the tail. Right now she was doing just that, wearing an over-sized T-shirt and a pair of over sized men's boxers backwards with her tail sticking out of the fly.

Futility, she reached out with her tail, trying to pull the remote control control closer to herself before giving up. She probably could grow a tentacle to grab it or something, but that would be even more work than simply standing up.

Normally, she wasn't this lazy but ever since she woke up from her dream, and stabbed that poor girl, things had seemed to go south. Not only could she feel the girl's mounting confusion, hunger, and fear quite clearly on the edge of her mind, but there was something else, something dark and predatory sitting on the very periphery of her consciousness that filled her with a deep primal dread and made relaxing almost impossible.

"This sucks," he muttered to herself.

Sooner or later Kodachi and Ranma were going to find out what she did, and there would be hell to pay. Not only that but while part of her knew they needed to leave this planet now, she felt a responsibility to the girl who's name she didn't even know. Like it or not, she was one of them now, and she couldn't abandon her, no matter how much she might want off this planet and away from what ever foulness was perverting her dreams.

Glancing up she heard foot falls on the stairs down to her little private kingdom and buried her face in her pillow hoping that the other's would think she was asleep.

"Nanami, we know you're awake," Kodachi said in that hoity, annoying voice, that just proclaimed to all 'I have something I think I can lord over you, so I am going to do just that'.

"What is it," she spoke into the pillow, scratching the back of her head with the blunted tip of her tail.

"Why do I feel another girl in our link?" Ranma asked in his equally annoying 'I've got the penis, so you gotta do what I say' voice.

Nanami groaned. Oh great, he even knew she was a girl. Did he have some form of magical alpha male sense that let him detect the status of all his breeder bitches or something? If so, how humiliating. It almost made her wish they'd just cut her head off like she'd asked.

Almost.

Sighing, Nanami turned over and sat up, looking about as grouchy and foul tempered as she felt. "Listen, I just had the worst fucking night imaginable and I can't even close my eyes without feeling like some unseen terror is about to come closing down on us all like the jaws of some unseen monster."

The two looked at each other and frowned, obviously not discounting what she said.

"Any idea what it is?" Ranma asked.

"I don't know," Nanami admitted. "It might be bugs, but at the same time I might just be thinking of them because I sense danger and they're pretty much number one on my list of things that go through my head about when I think 'danger', or I might just be having nightmares about the Repository. I don't know."

Ranma frowned and shared a glance with Kodachi, who nodded.

"We'll keep an eye out. Now, explain the other girl."

"Shit," Nanami muttered rubbing her eyes. "We got a delivery, I just woke up from a nightmare, I was disoriented, and I reacted on instinct. She didn't even know what happened. I kind of... blocked her memory."

"You converted someone," Kodachi said coolly. "Without asking. I remember you telling me at length how horrible an act that is."

"Yeah, well at least I didn't do it consciously," Nanami shot back, "Listen, I know I messed up but what am I supposed to do? I think that dream triggered my danger sense or something. I don't know."

Ranma frowned and crossed his arms. "We have to find her. She's one of us now."

Nanami sighed. "Listen, lets just go about our day like this never happened. Just keep an eye out and find her if you can. We can't act too obvious, and we have to be careful. Something is skittering around the edge of my mind, something dangerous, and I can tell you now I don't like it."

The other hybrids nodded.

"Are you coming out with us?" Kodachi asked.

Nanami shook her head. "No. After yesterday, I think I could use the down time."

Ranma nodded. "Alright. Just tell me what this girl looked like."

Nanami sighed and leaned back. "Fifteen maybe sixteen, about 5ft tall, blue eyes, blond hair, nice rack, nice butt, and in prime physical condition."

Ranma smirked slightly. "I'll keep an eye out for her."

"I'm sure you will," Nanami replied. Horny bastard.

" _EEEYYAAHHHH!"_

Shayla-Shayla sat up in bed, eyes wide open.

"What the HELL was THAT?!"

Wiping away the sweat from her face, she tried to make sense of what had just happened.

She was no stranger to erotic dreams, but THAT one just took the weirdness prize!

Okay, Makoto Mizuhara there, that was a given. Ifurita; okay, a little different, not quite welcome, but she'd forgive the synthetic's presence in a dream for a chance to be with Makoto. Nanami Jinnai, likewise, but Nanami seemed to be taking the initiative in her dream. She figured that was okay too, since she'd had a grudging respect for the girl.

But what was with the black skin? And the golden eyes? And the whole spikes thing? But it was definitely Nanami; the plait-like hair was red and the face was unmistakably that of her old friend, but the whole vision seemed skewed somehow. Dream-Nanami had kinda reminded Shayla of some of the crazier Hindu-Indonesian bronze idols she'd seen once. Both exotic and terrifying at the same time.

What was crazier was that Nanami was putting the moves on her in front of Makoto...and Shayla had gone along with it! And was trying to get Ifurita into it as well!

Worse yet, Shayla was getting into it.

Then Nanami had stopped, and started acted strange. Well, at least stranger than the dream already was, and then there had been a sense of great danger, and...

"Okay...That does it! I either have to step up my drinking or find myself a man if I'm weirding out like this."

"Or see a psychiatrist, but that would only confirm what I've known for YEARS."

Shayla-Shayla's eyes snapped up to see her longtime friend/friendly antagonist Afura Mann leaning in the door of their Muldoon Observatory Station apartment, looking at her with both concern and a little amusement.

"And what would that be, bookworm?"

"Oh, that you're a few fries short of a Happi-Meal."

"ARghh! Don't you have observations to do?"

"I'm observing that you're late for your own observations, and I'm also observing that you're neither going to get started on them nor make any progress in getting a man by flashing me."

Shayla-Shayla suddenly realized that she was still sitting up in bed, her sheets around her legs, revealing that she did indeed sleep in the raw. And she'd just had a dream of some intense sex...

Grinning madly, Afura deftly dodged the barrage of loose objects flying her way.

"Makoto?"

"Yes, Ifurita?"

"Last night, while you were asleep, and I was at reduced alert levels, I had what I can only describe as an episode of random cognitive synthesis. You figured in it, but I also recognized several other individuals; Shayla-Shayla of the Muldoon Observatory, and another woman, a Nanami Jinnai, although in the latter case her appearance appeared to be radically altered. However, for some reason, I was able to identify her. Most unusual."

"Sounds to me like a dream."

"Makoto, during this episode, which lasted approximately eighteen point five-six minutes, I detected an attempt to access my three-theta-omicron sensory processing nodes."

"An access attempt? Were any other parts of your systems affected?" _Lord, but how he hated to think of the mind and body of the woman he loved as mere 'parts' and 'systems'._

"No, it's strange; it only seems that the access attempt was directed at those nodes."

"But the three-theta-omicron node is-"

"-Related to sexual stimulation. You've been trying to activate it, at my request, and at first I thought it was you, but this access attempt was coming through my long range tachyon sensor web interface, rather than the approach we've been trying."

"Did this attempt do anything?"

"No more than what we've already accomplished. The circumstances associated with the access were unusual and I found myself reluctant to allow it to continue, but then the episode ended and I achieved full wakefulness. Makoto, I have dreamed before, but those tended to be more random and reordered recollections than anything else. This was something entirely different."

"You're sure that nothing else was affected? And it originated in your sensor web interface?"

"That appears to be the case."

"Well, if you wish, I'll look into it. See if anything registered."

"Thank you, Makoto, I'd like that."

"It's most likely nothing; you picked up a stray tachyon emission through the interface and it triggered a dream; like a noise at night prompting a dream of conversation or activity."

Makoto didn't want to voice his real concerns that an attempt through the tachyon sensor interface that hd been built into Ifurita might have been an effort by the corporation that had built her to locate her or tamper with her again remotely. But why would they only go for the sensation parts of her brain? Why go for the deactivated ones of her cloned and altered brain associated with sexual pleasure?

His mind mulled over this puzzle, distracting him from his waking thoughts of his OWN strange(and sexually charged) dream. That had happened to include Ifurita(of course), but also Shayla and Nanami-

The bedside computer reader, sensing that the cabin's occupants were all awake, beeped that it had the morning day-cycle's news and e-mail ready to be viewed.

Deep in the burrow of his office, Doctor Schtalubaugh, who hadn't had a thought of sex in nearly a half-century, and still hadn't as of last night, tucked into the morning paperwork(actual and virtual) that he found when he arrived, as was his wont to do at the Roshtaria University Library. He quickly skimmed the incoming mail headers; requests for materials, regular data transfers and updates from other archives and institutions, bills for services, payments for services, data dumps from field workers, students, and research associates, and so on. Most addressed to him as a representative of the University or simply to University itself.

A name caught his eye. One he hadn't seen in a while. Nanami Jinnai. A file addressed to him. A large file. He opened up the intro portion of the file.

"Dear Doctor Schtalubaugh, after many years I've located a copy of that information you wanted for your records collection and am sending it along in the event the originals are lost-"

Strange girl; he HADN'T requested any information from Nanami Jinnai, nor had he sent a biology sciences graduate along to obtain any such thing. This was puzzling.

And Doctor Schtalubaugh liked puzzles.

Reading the rest of the notes, and seeing the attached encrypted file folder, the old archivist felt something of a thrill as he contemplated this one.

On far Alpha Ceti, deep within their own burrow, the slick black demon shapes felt the thrill of accomplishment, and of meeting a biological imperative.

The screams of hosts cut short as the first new generation of the new hive came out to join the first drones in service to their young queen-mother.

Soon they would range farther afield, in search of fresh prey, as the queen began producing new eggs en masse.

Chief Cho watched as people came drifting in. Most of the active and reserve security staff were already there, and in fact he'd pulled in most of the raw recruits. There were a few from the outer ranches that hadn't come in yet, but there was another missing number that concerned him more.

"Anybody seen Celes?" he asked, looking about with a frown.

"I saw her asleep in her speeder earlier today," one of the staff said.

"Heh, she just about cleaned out the barbeque single handedly this evening," another noted. "Should have seen her eating like there's no tomorrow."

Cho frowned. Neither report sounded like Celes at all, at least not as he knew her in the last few years. It was just one more strange occurrence in the area that he wasn't liking to add up.

"Okay," he said, frowning. "We have five big-bore sniper rifles capable of damaging an ED-290. And we're short one of the people best qualified to use them."

"She's just a trainee, Chief," one of the regular staff noted with a bit of irritation. "A kid at that. And she isn't the best shot."

"She's good enough that she's an asset," Cho snapped. "If you see her and nothing catastrophic has happened, send her here so I can tear a piece out of her hide for ignoring a rally."

That said he stepped up in front of the gathered security personel, a small militia of four or five dozen men and women.

"Okay, this is a training exercise," he called out sticking to the story he'd given the mayor-CEO. "We have an ED-290 out loose in the area. Unfortunately, it has escaped the training bounds and is wandering too close to the settlement for comfort. We're out to take it down."

He continued to give out the plans of their search and attack on the ED-290 as other events were pushing on.

Meanwhile, another meeting was going on.

"These visitors in the firefly that landed," someone noted. "There's something to them that I don't like."

He paced a little bit before continuing.

"There's something about them that I can't put my finger on," he said finally.

The man paced a little more.

"I can't predict what I don't understand," he explained. "And that's bad for business."

"We need to find out everything we can about them," the lecture continued.

He stopped pacing, his back to his followers.

"Failing that, we need them gone," he finished.

Out near one of the furthest ranches, a pair of security staff came up to the house and knocked loudly calling out. Neither was in a place to see the hole gaping in the roof of the large metal building where something had ripped out the ventilation grates and slipped in.

"Hello! MacDermot, are you in there?" he asked. "There's a security rally we need you and your son for."

Inside the house, abandoned and strewn with debris, several pockets of leathery eggs sat waiting for the men outside to get close enough to trigger their opening.

Walking around the back of the ranch-house, one of the group stopped short as he stared out at the large field of cattle all tipped over and lying dead and mutilated across the field.

Holes gaping in their bodies the obvious cause of death.

He looked up and was mildly relieved to see that it was still daylight.

"Guys! We need to get out of here right now!" he shouted, running back around to the front of the building.

It had been almost a full Earth standard day since the strange dream she'd had, and waking up in time to be embarrassed by Afura. Since then, everything seemed to have calmed down a bit. Though she'd had the urge to go out and buy some makeup for some reason.

She'd just had this sudden feeling that her nails and lips needed to be black. There was a slight green-black eyeshadow applied now as well.

It wasn't satisfying, for some reason, but it was all she could really do right now.

Light years away, Nanami flipped through the channels on the television irritably. Several seperate tensions still working on her from different directions.

Chief amongst those were the since of nearby danger, a worry for others and a rebuilding sexual desire.

The girl she'd converted yesterday had spiked in confusion and terror a few hours ago, perhaps thirty mintues after Kodachi and Ranma went looking for her. Now there was practically nothing coming out of her.

"Gotta stop worrying," she told herself. "Gotta think about something else."

The TV wasn't working, so she was letting herself engage in some sexual fantasizing.

She absolutely didn't let herself think about Ranma. She knew without a doubt that would bring him running since he was just waiting for her to give in, something she wasn't quite ready for.

Not yet.

To her surprise she almost started fantasizing about Kodachi. Until she realized that would bring her running too, and she really wasn't ready for a physical sexual encounter with another female.

Again, not yet.

Strangely, the image of the girl she'd converted came next. But that image was slippery and hard to lay hold of. It wasn't nearly as satisfying as that dream yesterday had been.

If she had known why, she would have probably stopped herself right there.

Celes was in a defensive posture both telepathically and physically. Imagining her was no better or worse than a human imagining some attractive figure and pleasuring themselves. And it wasn't strong enough to shut out the worries and fears she was trying to escape.

Moving on to Makoto was the same. Somewhere, the young man was awake and checking on Ifurita, not asleep and mind open to easy location by a friend. Nanami would have to know what she was doing consciously and make an effort to reach him right now, and she wasn't concentrating hard enough to do that.

Then she started to imagine Shayla-Shayla. The woman she was in the middle of pleasuring during her dream when it was interrupted.

The woman she had successfully and unconsciously changed at least mentally. Unlike Makoto, who was still thinking on a human, or possible machine, wavelength. Shayla-Shayla shared a channel with Nanami and the hybrid collective now.

She was a beacon, a familiar beacon and easily found by someone who wasn't even really trying.

Shayla-Shayla looked into the mirror, frowning and trying to work through the impulse that had convinced her to make herself up like this.

It was attractive for some reason she couldn't lay a finger on, though it had driven Afura into something of a giggling fit when she'd first seen it.

The pyrokinetic was still trying to figure out when the image of a black-skinned Nanami faded into view in front of her between Shayla and the mirror. Though without appearing in the mirror.

Before Shayla could say anything, the image shifted forward pushing into her. She felt the slick black skin of Nanami's breasts press against her own, and felt the black lips meet her own painted ones.

To someone else, it looked merely like Shayla backed up into the tile wall, but they weren't party to the signals being sent to her neurons.

Nanami's tongue dueled eagerly with Shayla's and the red-head could feel the worry and repressed terror in Nanami's mind, and reached out to comfort the other girl, slipping an arm around the mental image.

Nanami shivered as what she took to be her own imagination slipped hands down her back soothingly and leaned into her. She was trying to gasp but couldn't around the imagined pressure of Shayla's tongue in her mouth.

This was easily the most intense fantasy she'd had. It reminded her more of what she felt on the edge of Kodachi and Ranma's lovemaking. Though in those cases, she was shielding herself and they were trying to be polite and keep her out as well.

If Nanami didn't know better, she'd have sworn that she was right in the room, some bathroom that was a mix of hers and another, with the red-headed fire-starter.

Desperately she traced her arms over Shayla's form, her tail wrapping around them both. Until it slipped into Shayla's back.

Shayla gasped at the return of the brief pain that had come just before the previous dream had been interrupted. The pain faded quickly as a warmth seemed to spread through her mind and body.

Physically, nothing changed, but Shayla's mind reveled as she imagined her skin turning slick and black and a long tail erupting out of her lower back. Nanami's stinger retreated and the two mental tails moved toward caressing each participant in the mental bonding.

Shayla's shirt tore under her own hand, which also pulled down the bra underneath, baring her breast. The red-head would have sworn that Nanami pulled it down, not her.

She started to moan in a restrained manner as the imagined mouth of her partner moved down to that open breath and started to suckle.

Shayla tasted wonderfully, Nanami decided, mentally imagining herself pushing into the other and enjoying the newly slick feel of Shayla's hybrid skin and the brush of the tails against each other.

Momentarily she fanned, in her mind, back up to Shayla's neck and left a hand to caress the breast as she licked and kissed the sensitive flesh under the chin.

The "imaginary" Shayla responded in a surprsing way as fingers reached down to find Nanami's petals and started vigorously playing at them.

The scream of passion that Shayla heard was only audible to her and Nanami.

From there, Shayla took the aggressive route, pushing Nanami onward, crushing the minds of both together as bursts of pleasure erupted all over each of their bodies.

Knowing that Afura might be around somewhere, Shayla kept her own sounds of passion firmly within her own mind, easily perceptible to Nanami, and even enhanced by the containment. But each time she drove the fantasy-alien Nanami into an orgasm, her smile grew a bit broader.

Then they started to come down, ease down from the highs of passion. Strangely, as much control as she'd taken at the end, Shayla found herself easing slowly into Nanami's bosom, weary beyond words.

If they'd been aware that it was a real connection rather than just a random fantasy, that would have made some sense given Nanami's stronger mind, but as it was, it seemed a bit out of place to both girls.

Nanami was not fresh, though, it took a lot of effort to reach across the galaxy like that, and the limits of her ability were coming now. And slowly the "fantasy" faded away.

Though now there was a bond between the two as strong as had been between Kodachi and Ranma after their third sexual encounter on the _Beagel_.

The image of Nanami gone, Shayla found herself panting and a growing echo of something she just knew.

Nanami was alive, something most had thought hopeless. She wasn't alone, there were friends with her, but there definitely was danger.

Nanami had been certain of it and hiding from it in Shayla's presence.

Shayla's mind told her all this had to be a dream, a fantasy. But it gnawed at her.

"What the hell is going on with me," she wondered outloud.

Kodachi blinked and looked toward the ship and then toward Ranma as she felt a much relieved Nanami's presence return to the background of their mind.

The clone knew Nanami had a much stronger telepathic ability than they did, but it had worried her when Nanami had simply left from awareness save as a very, very distant presence.

The feeling, not words, she got from Ranma was a similar level of relief. And they both went back to looking for the girl Nanami had converted, someone Kodachi strongly suspected was the girl she'd had helping her out while shopping before.

Still flush with the after effects of pleasure Nanami, sighed in relaxation as she slipped walked from the showers, her body in its armored half-breed state. Unlike the last time she'd pleasured herself, she'd made sure to scrub and scrub well and ran the shower a good long time to ensure that the place did not reek of her sexual musk. The last thing she needed to do was give Ranma any more ideas than he already had. If she didn't deodorize herself, he'd be on her like white on rice and she honestly wasn't sure if she'd be able to resist. He was a macho idiot, but he was a sexy macho idiot with good genes.

Walking down the steps, making sure not to damage anything, she headed to her personal space on this ship, the one location that she could be herself physically and mentally without fear of interruption or breaking anything: the Med-Bay. Not only could she lock the doors from the inside, and pull the shutters down making it completely private, but the environment was also completely unlike that of the lounge or the other crew areas. Gone was the fragile wood and leather, and instead there was only durable metal and plastics, with a minimum of padding. Even the bed and the seats were safe being covered in a kevlar like plastic that was almost impossible to cut.

It was so nice not having to mind the upholstery.

Adjusting the climate controls to a more comfort level, she dimmed the lights and found herself enjoying a level of warmth and humidity that would have been somewhat oppressive if she still was human. If she'd spent time to consider it, she'd have been horrified to realize that she had set the room to conditions not too far removed from those of a Xenomorph hive.

Not realizing that fact, she instead savored the feeling of the warm, humidified air blowing across her already moist skin and carapace. Still able to see clearly in the dimly lit room, Nanami sat at once of the benches and slid over to her personal computer console. Yesterday when she'd visited the up-link station, she'd arranged for a connection to the local network so she could remotely send and receive without having to leave the privacy and comfort of her own lab.

Kicking back she opened up the connection menu and cracked her knuckles, the sound of popping bone and chitin serving to make a loud, impressive sound. First, she'd have to connect to the network, but after she was done feeding the proper information into it and the uplink was up, everything would be good as gold.

With a smile she opened the proper menu and blinked. There was the wireless signal for the local array, identified as CetiStation1, which was the remote linkup to the local station, but there was also a connection called LocalOne.

"Wait a second," she muttered, "We have two connections?"

Clicking on the second option her face twisted into a joyful smile, her razor sharp fangs glinting white with reflected light from the screen. Local indeed, the second connection was a hard network connection. That meant it they had their own on board FTL communications array.

"Sweet," she said with a chuckle. "I wonder what other toys Carthy's left us?"

Giggling like a demonic school girl, she logged onto the Local connection and almost gave a whoop as she saw the connection status. She wasn't a computer nerd, that was Makoto's thing, but she knew what she was looking at when she saw it. This was a full access connection! It looked like Carthy had managed to get his hands on a back door into both Umbrella and Weyland-Yutani's own corporate databases!

Recalling one of Makoto's old discussions on the subject, she recalled that such back doors were intentionally designed to allow corporate black operations to work completely undetected, even by their own people. Now, while she lacked the codes necessary to get into the high levels of the network, what she did have was unlimited Tier One security access. In other words, she had a infinite supply of entertainment and news sitting at her finger tips.

"Boo-ya!" she cried out as she did a little spin on her stool. "No more watching shitty reruns for me!"

After quickly putting some of her favorite shows and games on download, she switched over to the Ceti network to check any mail she might have received since the day before.

Seeing she got a reply she opened it and scowled. The old drunk as fucking with her. Well, that or he thought someone was fucking with him. Either way, she felt her annoyance level rising rather swiftly.

Clicking reply, she started her message.

"Okay, you old drunk, spit our that cigarette and listen. We both know my brother was a corporate stooge, not a researcher, and you know as well as I do that he went and got himself killed during the Polaris Infestation. Just like we both know that I used to call Eisenhardt 'Profressor Blowhardt'."

"You can also tell Miz 'hello' for me, and mention that I still say it was her own damned fault. Now, if this doesn't convince you I'm me, maybe I should tell Miz about that time with the ducks. Please respond, and this will my my last message from this address. Found a more secure connection."

Nanami grinned and hit send.

Miz scowled at Fujisawa as he pushed the synthetic vegetables around his plate. He had been mopey and sober since he read that message. It didn't help matters that he was thumbing that damn data crystal all night. Part of her wanted to reach out and snap it in half but she knew that would probably push him over the edge any way. Her hand rested over her glass for a moment as she pulled an ice cube out of her drink and threw it at him.

He sputtered for a moment, "Hey what was that for."

She giggled, "For being a mopey idiot."

He scowled back at her but she beat him to the point, "Look take that damn data crystal over to Xavier's and open it up. The old man has at least a dozen surplus machines lying around off network even if it is one big virus you can just pull the drive and be done with it. Besides, if it is her she probably didn't drop his name without reason."

Miz watched at he perked up like a praised puppy. To her it was really pretty pathetic but his loyalty was one of his endearing qualities. He stood up and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before darting out the door. She pushed the remainder of her dinner away and wandered over to her computer; it was his turn to do dishes anyway. She looked down at the mail browser and frowned. Nanami Jinnai reply sitting right on top. She clicked the message open and scanned the contents, "Ducks huh?"

The shuttle cross cross town and into the suburbs took only thirty five minutes door to door. Fujisawa pressed the intercom button on the gated estate. The tenured professor had done exceptionally well in his life time. His work in genetics and artificial immune systems was both profitable and life saving. His success also bought privacy, the kind only money and power could ensure. He waited until a woman's voice came over the intercom, "Welcome to the Xavier residence how may I help you."

He ground his teeth a bit, "Professor Masamichi I'm hear to speak to Professor Xavier." The synthesized voice only served to remind him who he was visiting. It also served to remind him just how sober he currently was.

The voice pleasantly replied, "My records do not indicate a professional appointment at this time Professor Masamichi. Is this a social visit?"

"Yes, it is a god damn social visit." He muttered under his breath, "Paranoid old bastard."

Her reply was easily anticipated, "I'm sorry but there are no social events scheduled for tonight. Pl..."

Fujisawa administered a round house kick to the video screen promptly disabling it but setting off the private security system. Flood lights kicked on illuminating the area in blinding white light. He squinted his eyes shut and waited for them to adjust.

A gruff voice grumbled, "Shit Fuji, and they say I have terrible people skills."

He recognized the voice. Xavier's retainer, an ex-"marine" that had a history just as shady as his employer, "Not my fault he set the damn thing to aggravate and annoy."

The gate clicked open and Fujisawa stepped through. The large man laughed, "Well you know how those street gangs are here on Harvest."

"Yea, I'm so lucky I didn't get mugged on the way over." He joked back. The man's past may have been questionable but he was a decent sort of person, "Is Xavier in?"

"Chuck got some file today and has been pouring over it for hours." He gestured to the door, "It's why he set out the do not disturb sign."

After fishing into his pocket he held up the data crystal, "Seems I got the same thing."

"Ah, well next time just ask for me instead." He let out a gruff laugh, "Saves on the repair costs any way."

Fujisawa scratched the back of his head, "Will do."

Xavier relaxed into his chair as he pondered the file Nanami sent him. He had time to skim through most of the project headers leaving the technical details for later but it was clear there were several million man hours of work. He flagged several of the more exotic experiments for a more through read. The most interesting file was the one detailing the abilities of Nanami herself. The girl had several telepathic markers and he had completely missed it. He was mentally berating him self that alone could have put his research ahead ten years no wonder Umbrella-Weyland-Yutani picked her up. A knock on his door prevented any further reading. He slide the files to the edges of the monitor before moving himself to the door.

Fujisawa looked down at the man in the wheel chair and smiled, "Ah, sorry to barge in on you like this Charles." He let the data crystal dangle from his hand.

Xavier looked at the man and then his hand before he nodded, "Seems our young friend really stepped in it."

The scruffy man just nodded, "Greed and Vengeance are great motivations. It was a shame we couldn't do more for her."

"I offered more than fair compensation to employ her. It seems Umbrella had more in mind for her." Xavier turned and pulled up her file to the large screen that dominated one wall of the study, "Fourteen telepathic markers, just six shy of complete manifestation."

He sat down at the nearby desk and let out a long whistle, "I had no idea."

"Neither did I. Did you browse the file yet?" Xavier asked quickly.

Fujisawa shrugged, "Didn't want to open up a virus on a school computer. Figured you'd have a spare machine or at least better sentry programs."

Xavier gave him a blank look, "Miz kicked you out didn't she?"

He nodded and slid the crystal across the table and grumbled, "Just open it up."

The interface too a moment to load and read the data. Xavier punched in the password he used to decrypt his file but the entry failed. Xavier looked at him, "Different passwords?"

"Something's got her spooked. Let me pull up the original mail see if she dropped a hint." Fujisawa logged into the unused terminal and pulled up his mail. He turned slightly pale as he realized there were two messages from Nanami and the newer one was also marked read. He eye the new message went slightly pale. Miz was sure to be asking about the ducks now. He moved to the older message looked it over then typed. The interface to the crystal gave him a green light and the files started to decompress onto the desk top. The two men eyed the contents in silence as the file headers flashed by.

Xavier clicked the master directory and looked at the contents list, "Similar file but I don't recognize any of these headers. She must have taken a large chunk of their database."

Fujisawa nodded then moved to a promising file, "Miz is going to kill me."

He started typing on the computer, "Alright brat you got my attention. Miz is going to be bugging me about the ducky now. Xavier is mildly impressed by the genetic work up they did on you. Watch your back, you stole a lot of work here but we may be able to help a lot of people with it. We'll see what we can do about getting you home."

The two men turned back to the file headers and started sorting though the data trying to make sense of just what the hell they had on their hands.

Nanami yawned as the next reply came back and smirked a bit at what she saw written.

She'd like to respond that she'd pulled most of that in the midst of an evacuation and that any evidence she was still alive was gone, but that wasn't the safe sort of thing to send on channels.

It might provoke attention from a corporate Taboo, one of the technically illegal keyword search programs that filtered through the vast computer network looking for any mention of something connected to them.

She did respond, however.

"Serves you right. Thanks for the worry, yeah, I can almost feel something breathing down my neck right now. I do have some back up though in the form of Kodachi and Ranma, though. Check the files and you'll see. Also, my genetic work up isn't up to date, Kodachi 'upgraded' me while we were leaving."

She sent the message and nodded. Those names would lead them to the clone harvesting operation and the genetic recipe for the hybrids she was currently with. While it wasn't a full work up, it would give them some hint of what they were working with.

Hopefully it would dampen the shock when they found her no longer human.

She looked down at herself and wondered at it for the moment. One week ago, she'd still been spending most of her time in human form, now she was lounging about in hybrid whenever she could. Her mindset was changing in someways, that was obvious, especially since it was bothering her less.

She stood up and started to walk out of the infirmary to go find some food.

The uneasiness was still there. Something on this planet was still being very dangerous and she was still having nightmare thoughts of bugs on the warpath.

She shivered nervously and turned into the kitchen, shutting out worry for the moment as she reached into the fridge for a beer. The scientist was taking her first swig when she turned around and saw three strange men staring at her in outright shock.

Her eyes darted to the guns in their hands.

Their eyes darted to the spike-tipped tail, plenty long enough to reach across the room.

"Erm, what are you doing on my ship?" she asked, hoping speech would keep them from reacting violently a few more seconds.

The guns came up and the tail lashed out, pushing most of them away so that they went off into the tough ceiling.

One intruder got a shot off before she deflected his aim, however, and a slug of hot metal tore through the shoulder of her t-shirt and into the slick flesh beneath.

In reaction, Nanami, for the first time in her short period as a hybrid, shifted fully into the more heavily protected war-form and lunged forward.

One of the men screamed and full back out of the room calling for help, another rolled out of the way of her attack, readying his gun again. The third took the brunt of her attack, crumpling over her fist as she slammed it into his stomach.

Nanami'd kept to a fist in order to avoid killing, but she wasn't reckoning on her increased strength. Even a clawless strike from her ruptured internal organs and made death by internal bleeding a liklihood. The difference between her and Ranma being that Ranma would actually be able to target specific organs if he wanted, and destroy them in human form. Meanwhile, she was just flailing with raw strength.

Her tail whipped out to trip up the other human before she turned around to him, grabbed the man and slammed him up into the ceiling, a decidedly less lethal tactic than what she'd inadvertantly done to the first man. The second was merely unconscious, not in dire need of an emergency room.

That left the third and whoever else was on her ship.

Instinctively, she chased down the corridor, sniffing him out as he moved down the stairs toward the cargo bay. She stopped cold, however, as she found herself facing several scattered gunmen in the low-set light of the ship.

A pistol shot rang out first and she felt a burst of pain rip into her side, then she was moving as something automatic sprayed behind her.

"How'd I get into this?!" she shouted outloud as she looked for cover by leaping up into the framework that cluttered the ceiling.

"It's in the ceiling," someone shouted as she crawled about above them, looking for safety.

One of the invaders stopped to take careful aim as she paused near a girter at just the wrong time. Fortunately, before she could notice or the man could take his shot, some of her blood leaked out of the healing wounds and down toward the bay floor.

The man taking aim at her was in the way.

He screamed out as the acid started to eat into his skull and flayed about erratically as his companions tried to wash the fluid away.

In the confusion, Nanami dropped downward and picked up an empty crate, hurling it across the room and scattering several of the men clustered in a tight group.

They were unable to recover quickly enough before a fear and danger driven Nanami was in their midst. One managed to shoot her a third time, but all that did was convince Nanami to let loose the reins on her instinct.

The claws came out.

When it was done, she was sitting in a pile of bodies panting heavily as she shrank down into human form and started shaking.

The man she'd knocked unconscious in the kitchen stumbled into the cargo bay as she sat there, holding herself and trying to keep from freaking out over what she had just done. Her hands were still slick with blood, however, and it was merely spreading over her naked skin by her actions.

He looked at her and the dismembered corpses around her, and sprinted past out toward the cargo bay.

The thug was outside the ship when some of the shock wore through and Nanami started screaming.

Ranma sighed as he lugged another arm full of bags towards their transport. When they'd left he'd been intending to spend the entire day finding the girl Nanami converted and trying to figure out what this danger Nanami felt was. Now, while they were asking around, the majority of what he found himself doing was something entirely different.

"Oh, this is so cute!" Kodachi cooed as she spotted a black baby bonnet near on one of the local stalls. "I'll take it."

Exchanging the clothing for money, she threw it onto the pile and they continued on.

As soon as they'd hit the town, much to Ranma's lingering displeasure, Kodachi had snagged another sales girl to help them around the town. When they'd left the Repository, they'd only had what little clothing Nanami could carry with her, and what they could salvage out of Carthy's closet. Kodachi seemed to be hell bent on fixing that, as well as picking up some personalized items to make the ship less a ship and more a home. As someone who'd lived out of a backpack his entire life, Ranma honestly didn't see the point.

He had a transient mentality. To him home was where your head laid. He didn't put any attachment on places and not much on things. Kodachi on the other hand, well, she'd probably already bought him more clothes and useless knickknacks than he'd had owned at any one time in his entire past life, the time spent with the Tendos included, and she wasn't done yet. Now she was looking for clothing for their offspring, and Nanami's eventual offspring which she was sure was to be conceived sooner than later, not that he had any problems with that idea.

Of course she was going over the top, buying clothes for all ages because she wasn't sure how fast their kid would mature. Nanami had said that Sil type hybrids could reach maturity in weeks. She'd also said their metabolic rates were slower and more stable and their kid's maturation rate would probably be much slower, but still. Give the Black Rose an excuse to shop and the Black Rose will shop.

Must be a chick thing, he decided.

Still, one good thing had come out of this. It seems their new shopping girl didn't only know the girl that Nanami converted, but in fact the two of them were roommates. He'd asked about them and had gotten a good deal of information on both of them.

The girl Nanami had stabbed was named Celes Victora and she was 15 years old. She was a recruit for the security forces and helped out at the market in order to help pad the income she got from security. She also didn't come in the night before. That rubbed Ranma the wrong way, and as soon as he had a chance he was going to start looking for her. Had no idea where to start, but he trusted his gut to lead the way.

As for the girl herself, her name was Winry Rockbell, and she was also 15. She was a mechanic of some skill if she was to believed, and liked to talk about it at great, excessive, almost nauseating lengths. She only had this job because she needed the extra money. Seems she was taking a series of correspondence courses and needed the cash.

In a moment of dark personal humor, Ranma acting found himself asking why, if Nanami had been forced by instinct to turn one of them, why couldn't it have been this one? They did need a mechanic after all.

Sighing as he threw the latest pile of bags into the overloaded storage compartment of the small, over-glorified golf-cart that Winry called a car, he could not help but smirk as the girl struggled with forcing it closed.

"I think we're going to have to drop this stuff off back at your ship," the girl observed.

"Fine by me," Ranma replied. He could see the reasoning for getting these small comforts, such as clothing and the other junk she was buying, but personally he'd rather be in the thick of it. Hopefully now Kodachi would let him go off on his own to actively search. He'd always considered this waiting stuff to be for the birds.

Taking a moment to relax, he submerged himself in their link, hoping to get some clue as to Celes's location. Kodachi was close by as he already knew and feeling quite entertained by their shopping trip. Nanami was sitting in the ship and was radiating 'smug'. He could faintly feel the other presence, the one that probably belonged to Celes, but it was so subdued, it was impossible to pinpoint. Surprisingly he also felt something faint, almost unidentifiable that could be a fifth presence sitting beyond his range, but leaving a slight shadow on everything. It didn't feel like danger, but it made him wonder. Before he could contemplate it any more, a shock of fear from Nanami ripped its way through the the connection.

Shit! She was in trouble, again.

Glancing to Kodachi the two shared a nod. They couldn't just up and leave their stuff, as it would leave questions and and it would probably attract attention. They'd been asking questions about a missing girl, and the last thing they needed was for Winry to go to security. At the same time, they had to help Nanami. Now.

"I'm going to do my own thing for a couple," Ranma said suddenly.

Winry blinked in some confusion, but before she could respond, Kodachi added, "You do that. Winry, dear, how about you and I go get something to eat. You're the local. You'd probablly know something good. What do you say? My treat!"

"Um, okay."

"Great," Ranma said, "I'll catch up with you two ladies once you're done."

Without another word, Ranma vanished into the crowd, and as soon as he had a chance began to run full out for the star port, doing his best not to be seen.

As he ran, Ranma couldn't help reflect on the situation. Honestly, Nanami almost had worse luck than Akane. Almost because while she tended to fall into trouble unwittingly, she didn't overestimate herself. That was a habit that had lead the girl to a very bad end. She'd gone with them into the hive, saying she was a martial artist too... and... well. Somethings he just didn't want to think about.

Shaking his head, and refusing to let his pack mate come to an equally bad end, he doubled his speed. He wouldn't let another of his girls die. Oh hell no.

While the port was a good mile and a half outside of town, he made the distance in less than three minutes, just in time to see a frantic looking man rushing out of the ship, his head bloodied and a gun in his hand.

Frowning, Ranma ran into him and punched him, knocking him completely unconscious. Without missing a beat he grabbed the man by the ankle and drug him with him. He had questions and this fucker was going to answer them.

Inside he found a mess. It was a carnal house. Bodies and gore everywhere. What pissed him off the most though, was the small scattering of acid burns in the floor. That meant blood, Nanami's blood.

A feral growl escaped his lips as he slammed on the controls for the cargo bay door, closing it behind him. They needed to hide this, clean it up. They could not afford this bullshit.

"Nanami?" he cried out. "Are you okay?"

Hearing the chittering of movement, he looked up and saw Nanami standing on the upper cause way of the bay, in her half-breed form, covered in blood and ruined clothing, looking like some kind of vengeful goddess. It it wasn't for the shell-shocked look on her face, he'd honestly say it was one of the most erotic sites he'd ever been beheld.

"I'm, I'm alright," she said, "I killed them. I killed all of them..."

"Well, except this guy," Ranma observed, dropping the survivor's leg.

"Except that guy," she replied nodding her head slightly.

"Listen," Ranma said, grabbing a spool of wire in order to bind his prisoner. "How about you wash up, we tie this guy up, we find out what's going on, and see what the damage is?"

Shayla-Shayla's confusion was interrupted by the sound of an individual applause.

Blushing furiously, she turned and looked to see Afura standing there, smirk plastered across her face as she clapped casually.

"Wow," she said. "That has got to be the most intense masturbation anybody has ever heard of. Until I came in the door, I thought you'd snuck someone into the observation station somehow."

"There was," Shayla-Shayla said face a brilliant shade of red.

"I've been watching since you tore your own shirt in the throes of passion," Afura said. "Even got me a little hot, but nobody was here except you and me."

"But it was Nanami..." Shayla-Shayla said.

Afura's mouth dropped open and stared at the red-head before making a sound half between a choke and a chortle.

"You were fantasizing over Nanami?!" she said. "That's rich. You competed for boys with Nanami before she went poof. Now you're having delusions of screwing her?"

"It was so real," the red-head said.

"I'm sure it was," Afura noted. "Now, if you'll excuse me, Shayla-Shayla, while you get yourself washed off and dressed, I'm going to search our food stores to see if Fatora or Alielle slipped anything into them last time they were here."

She left the bathroom with something of a repressed giggle as an embarrassed Shayla moved to the shower and tossed aside her ruined t-shirt.

It was half an hour later when Shayla was walking out of the bathroom. Afura snickered and waved at her from the observation deck and then paused as Shayla took a turn ahead walked resolutely toward the launch bay.

Arching her eyebrows, Afura stood up from her station.

"Where are you going, Shayla?" she asked.

"I've got to go," the red-head said. "Nanami's in trouble."

"Nanami's been missing for five years or more," Afura said, moving to try and catch up with Shayla. "And you have one vivid daydream and now you want to play white knight?"

"I don't know, all right?" Shayla responded. "I just know I have to go."

"Where?" Afura asked, moving around in front of Shayla.

"That direction," Shayla said certainly before repeating a heading.

"Okay, I can take the sudden fashion shifts," Afura noted. "I can accept the sudden sexual fantasies about other women. Like I said, it isn't the first time certain individuals have slipped aphrodisiacs into the supplies. But I'm not going to sit here and let you go off into a random direction in space to go save someone most of our friends think is dead."

"Get out of my way, Afura," Shayla said. "I'll burn you if I have to."

"Wind beats fire, Shayla," Afura warned. "I'm not letting you go."

"And then the station is trashed and we're both in trouble," Shayla noted. "And I beat you down with my fists and still go."

Afura straightened herself up and took a deep breath.

"Okay, look," she said. "We need more supplies soon anyway. We'll set the observatory on automatic and head out for a supply run...in that direction. I think there are a couple agriculture colonies that way anyway. You apparently desperately need a vacation. Sound good?"

"We're going then?" Shayla asked.

"But," Afura said. "We're coming back as soon as we have food and if we don't find any sign of Nanami, in danger or otherwise. Then we're stopping at Rushtaria on the way back and you're getting a check up."

"Fine," Shayla said. "Let's just go."

The red-head swished on by, looking over her shoulder after a moment and down toward her but.

"Am I supposed to have a tail?" she asked.

"Tai..let's just get this over with," Afura said. "Prep the launch, I'll set the auto-systems."

Under her breath she muttered.

"I swear, if I find one trace of mind-altering drugs, the little pervert is getting it, I don't care how cute she is."

"Sir! Sir!" a page called out across the office as the security chief gave orders to beta squad concerning their search sector.

"Alight boys and girls get to it and don't get shot." He dismissed the squad he was currently briefing, "What is it Hawkeye?"

"We got a report of gun fire at the dock yard." She handed him the dispatch and the complaint orders.

Cho looked down he read the date stamp on the dispatch and cursed, "Damn it. The droid is probably a distraction. We got a heist on our hands."

His head spun as he put together details that weren't exactly there but were not far stretches, "They probably used condensed pheromones to confuse the droid. Sound a general alert and have all of the ED-290 's locked down."

Hawkeye eyed the Chief, "Bit of a stretch sir?"

"No, not really. They were scouting us at the first incident. We have to lock down some our heaviest guns and chase after a defective units while they..." He pulled up the day's itinerary, "Hit the transfer at 08:30."

"Have Roy and Bill get their squads to the refinery and the vaults." He pulled out another set of papers and scribbled down two sets of orders for his two senior lieutenants.

She gave him a look expressing her disbelief, "You're basing this off a malfunctioning droid and a few gawkers? The two nine oh's aren't the pinnacle of reliability."

"Yea, but those spooks that were watching the scene add in." He signed the tablet and the paper orders, "My orders, now get to it."

She moved off to the communication room leaving him to figure out how to get his people back into position and subdue the 290 still on the loose.

Another page came in, "Sir, we just got a distress beacon from patrol six."

Cho bellowed out a curse, "Shit, this may be an inside job."

"Sir?" The page blinked at the usually calm commander's panic, "Shouldn't we at least check out the beacon?"

He blinked at the younger woman and nodded, "Wake up Vincent have her and Hopkins take a pass over the farm with the cobra that has the ground penetrating radar. Get all the other pilots back on the ground. If anybody refuses pull their IFF code."

A dozen docking slips down a Ganymede trawler buzzed with activity. A group of mercenaries double checked their weapons and armor. A voice bellowed out, "Where the hell is Frank. I thought I told him to leave those colonists alone."

A voice answered back, "He took his brothers and a few of the newbies to go check out that firefly."

The older man bellowed out, "God damn it I told them to stay low find out what they were. Sticking up god damn tourists is not how you make money."

He looked over his men and sighed, "This is a god damn disaster. Two freaking hours to go and they decide to chase a few stray credits."

Several of his more seasoned crew just nodded. Another mercenary spoke up, "I'll prep the lancer. Well have to go without spotters."

The boss nodded and started to pace, "Too late to back out now. Bad men are expecting to be paid. We're not here for god damn pocket change. If they come back shoot them. "

He stormed off to his quarters on the ship letting out the occasional curse, "I'm to old to be doing grunt work. Bloody yokel amateurs! I should have never agreed to this job." He popped open his personal foot locker retrieving a set of body armor and weapons.

"So what's with all the clothes?" Winry asked.

"Oh, I am with child," Kodachi said with a proud smile.

"Well, congratulations," Winry said as she picked up a pink-leather jacket meant for teenagers. "But, do you expect them to come out fully grown or something?"

"Not far from it, I suppose," Kodachi said. "OhhhHOHOHOHOHOHO! Children do grow up so fast I hear. HOHOHOHOHO!"

Winry sweated a little at the woman's unusual behavior, but she'd met weirder people.

"No, we might be cut off from the better colonies soon," Kodachi noted. "It is best to stockpile when you can."

"I hope you get the sizes right," Winry said.

"Oh, sizes at least are slightly mutable," Kodachi assured her with a smirk.

Winry turned around from loading the jacket onto the cart and looked at Kodachi nodding. She was about to turn around again to put something else in the cart when a fact about what she'd seen registered briefly.

Whipping about, she took in the strange woman's figure and noted that it was as slender and small-chested as she had originally thought, still, she couldn't help but vocalize her confusion.

"Were your breasts...bigger...just a moment ago?" she asked.

"Oh don't be silly," Kodachi responded with an easily visible twinkle. "Who can change their measurements on a whim?"

"Right, silly of me," Winry said. "Anyway. Where will you..."

Kodachi's demeanor had shifted from casual and quirky to silent and grim in a brief moment.

"Something wrong?" Winry asked.

"Stop right there!" a man shouted, coming about with a plasma rifle pointed directly at Kodachi.

Several other men bearing an assortment of rifles and other weapons started slipping out of the alleyways.

"This is a mistake," Kodachi warned, moving Winry behind her as shopkeepers scattered for cover.

"Everyone make sure not to damage it too much," the man with the plasma rifle insisted. "If these are synthetics, we'll want top salvage rights."

"Synthetics..." Winry asked.

"I repeat, you are making a mistake," Kodachi noted again.

"One of you 'tourists' tossed about me and some of my men like they were children," the leader said. "If you're not synthetics, there's something else about you that might be worth a few credits. Bring it up."

One of the thugs stepped forward carrying a large box of some sort.

"An EMP platform?" Winry said.

"Don't worry," Kodachi said, holding a tight rein on her anger and waiting for a distraction. "This will be fine."

Quickly, the box was set down, some knobs were twisted and a blast of electro-magnetic energy pulsed outward invisibly. It shut down lights and displays as it went, but Kodachi only smiled.

"Shit, she's shielded!" the leader said, looking off to the side. "Try again!"

And in that moment, Kodachi moved.

The shots fired around her, only one or two grazing past her skin. Primarily, she was a weapon-user, but recent instincts made her more than competent as an unarmed fighter. More so than Nanami who didn't have training of any sort to back up her instincts, to hone them into a directed weapon rather than a random flailing.

It didn't take long for her to rip through the thugs as they tried and failed to follow her motion. She'd never been a strong chi user, but that didn't matter, the "bio-electric" abilities granted by the mitochondria in her system worked differently.

Probably why Ranma hadn't yet reproduced all his chi abilities yet and she had. Kodachi had fewer tricks to recreate.

And speed and agility were amongst the first she relearned. She wasn't faster than a bullet, but she was faster than the average person could aim.

"Well," Kodachi said, dusting her hands with a superior smirk. "That takes care of that. I told you it would be..."

Unfortunately, she was still somewhat reckless. Bullets that didn't hit the mark had to go somewhere.

The girl, Winry, was leaning against their cart of goods with three gaping holes in her torso. The shoulder, the left-hand chest and the abdomen. At least one of the holes came from the discharged energy projectile of a plasma rifle rather than a bullet.

Kodachi swiftly moved to the girl's side and her understanding of anatomy and biology, a martial artist's view, told her that the girl did not have long to live. Certainly not long enough to get to a hospital.

She was staring up and struggling to retain consciousness as long as possible. Blood trickled out of her mouth, coughed up from what had to be a damaged lung.

Unlike Nanami, Kodachi had no compulsion about converting someone at need such as this.

The change came swiftly, and the tail was already commanded to move when it finished jabbing the stinger into Winry's undamaged side. Genetic material and empowering mitochondria flooded from Kodachi into Winry.

Slowly, the girl's eyes and nails shifted to black and the wounds gradually started to close.

As the girl coughed up the last of the blood choking her throat she finally managed to speak.

"What are you?" she asked.

"We'll discuss that elsewhere," Kodachi said quickly, turning back to human and looking about, hoping no one had seen her. "Let's go."

Winry weakly nodded as Kodachi lifted her up and set her into the golf cart before driving off with as much speed as possible to the _Beagle_.

"I'm feeling hungry," Winry muttered, healed but still weak from a sudden expenditure of energy.

"You'll have food when we get to the ship," Kodachi assured her.

The GMH-200 gunship screamed through the air over Ceti Alpha's plains. The descendant of ancient Mangusta and Eurocopter design warcopters, the old bird, though not the equal of more modern military aviation offerings, was still a decent performer in its own right.

It was also fairly staggering under the weight of all the sensor and weapons pods festooning its pylons, the latter equipment of which was currently the subject of argument in the two-person cockpit of the flier.

"Damn it, May! I still think you went overboard! What were you thinking? Full warload? Since when are we expected a war on Mudpie?"

Rally's weapons officer shrugged in her place behind the pilot. "What's the point of a full-dress exercise if you don't do it full-dress? And what's the point of having gun mounts for this bird if we're never going to carry the full load-out?"

"Okay, the twenty-memee fully charged and loaded I can understand, but I heard you arguing with the deckmaster! ANTI-TANK missiles?! In addition to the AAMs?! Saturation rocket pods?!"

"Hey, I LIKE heavy ordnance! You can't have enough heavy ordnance! You're always wishing you had MORE heavy ordnance!"

Rally shook her head in her flight helmet. "You're too young to have been in the CMC. You must get that attitude from a prior life! I'm not going to even ask what you're carrying in your flightsuit."

"Maybe you'll find out when we get back to base and get off duty." May purred with such innuendo that Rally couldn't help but laugh.

"Okay, we're about where Patrol Six was supposed to be. Yep...there's a farm complex down there. Looks all right from here on first pass."

May hunched her head over the sensor displays as she booted up the so-called 'Blue Thunder Suite' aboard the 'bird. "Unless you count all the dead cattle."

"Humm? Sure they're just not hunkered down?"

"I'm seeing some funny things down there. Look at all those heifers down! And they're not registering on thermal scan. I think they're dead, Rally!"

"All of them?"

"-ALL of them!"

"Okay, scan around, make sure of this!"

"I'm not detecting any life signs, Rally! Not even from the farmhouse!"

"Look for Patrol Six's vehicle. They should be nearby!"

They found Patrol Six's vehicle easily enough. Some distance down the road, off in a ditch and wrecked, the windows broken, the vehicle on its roof.

"Jeez...Looks like they were trying to get away from something..."

May cut in on Rally's disbelief. "Rally! We got movement! Maybe a hundred yards down the road!"

"Show me!"

Within moments they picked up on it, and were soon buzzing over a single human figure staggering down the road, clad in the uniform of a Territory Security Patroller. Rally brought the copter to a hover in front of the staggering man and toggled her loudhailer, dialing it up so she could be heard over the rotor blades.

"Patrol Six! This is Cobra Three! Report your condition! What happened here?!"

The man looked up at the hovering gunship, steadied himself for a moment. Then he gathered his breath and began shouting.

"Thank god you're here!...Don't come down! Whatever you do, don't land! There's BUGS here!"

The shotgun surveillance mike picked up the man's labored words, even as the high-res optics zeroed in on his face. Rally's eyes widened as she took in the man's pale features, marked by strange bruises along his face and neck.

"They got Watson and Krim! ...They got everybody here...They got me! FACEGRIPPERS!" Tears were running down the man's face.

"I can feel the damn thing moving around inside me!...Tell..Tell everybody! We got BUGS!...Get the Marines! Get...gah!...oh no!..."

The patrolman went to his knees, as he fumbled for his service weapon. He was bringing it up to his chest when large red spots began appearing on the front of his jacket. With a scream of pure agony, he began pulling the pistol's trigger, firing into his own chest as something struggled to break out. Spastically the weapon bucked in his weakening grip as rounds pounded into his chest and neck.

Mercifully one of the slugs tore into his head, catching him under the chin and exploding his head from inside. A bloom of blood and brains painted the road behind him. The body danced for a moment, then collapsed to the ground.

-But not before Rally saw something bloody and serpentine emerge from the cracked chest and slither onto the road, leaking smoking fluid.

"Ohmigod..." May's voice was small.

Rally Vincent breathed hard, finding it hard to do anything beyond hearing the man's voice, and seeing him kill himself...No, that wasn't true, he was trying to kill SOMETHING.

Rally gritted her teeth and hissed, as her hands moved. The weapons-heavy 'copter pirouetted up and around the corpse on the ground below, following the skittering cable-shape of alien death. Thumb flicked a cover off, jabbed an arming switch. Finger trigger came tense as the weapon came online, ready to fire. A targeting display lit in her helmet HUD, crosshairs drifting across her field of vision, a hum of actuators below her seat sounding in response to her head movements.

There. Crosshairs locking on the shadowy little shape as it dove for a culvert.

 _ **BUDDABUDDABUDDABUDDAABUDDABUDDA**_

Barrels rotated, spewing twenty-millimeter caseless death, several cubic yards of roadbed, soil, and alien larva disintegrating under the pounding.

"MAY! Get on the horn to Command! Tell them we got Bugs! Dump our last sensor scans!"

"On it, Rally!"

"Then give me Weapons Hot!"

Facehuggers meant there had to be more Bugs nearby, she knew. The whole farm area was probably teaming with Bugs nearby.

Time to do some stomping. Rally hoped May hadn't neglected to include incendiaries in the warload.

"They're sure?" The Kessler-appointed Security Chief looked incredulous.

Patrol Chief Cho looked grim as he gestured at his handheld. "I just watched their datadump. I just watched one of my people try to kill his own killer. Chest burster. Perkins was a good man. It's not a hoax. We got Bugs on Ceti Alpha."

"Oh shit."

"Exactly. Oh shit."

Xavier starred at the mountain of data they had sifted through. He looked over Fujisawa and frowned, "I still don't get it."

"Neither do I." The two had focused their work onto the two files listed as HTS-Rma-841 and HTS-Khi-842. So far they had identified their names but didn't understand what she meant by upgraded.

As the professors scratched their heads Xavier scoffed, "We must be missing something. Kodachi and Ranma neither of them possess any telepathic markers."

A knock came at the door followed by a man carrying beer, Chinese food and a data cube, "You two look like hell."

Fujisawa pulled the top off the can and quickly downed the majority, "We've just been made privy to some kind of Romero horror with HR Geiger guest starring. He flicked his finger along the touch screen bringing up the details."

"You can spare me the visuals." He turned to his box of noodles and pulled out a mouth full, "What are you going to do with this lovely black mail folder?"

Xavier shrugged, "Leak most of it to a few universities and smaller companies."

Fujisawa nodded, "No point in drawing them down on top of us. I'm more worried about getting Nanami to safety."

"Perhaps you egg heads should watch the news a bit closer." He tapped the interface hovering just centimeters off the surface of the table, "This broke about half an hour ago."

The speakers came to life as a woman appeared on the wall, "In galactic news today we have received footage from multiple anonymous sources." Behind her clips of several orbital and planetoid stations suddenly exploding played. The anchor continued, "The notorious STARS group from the Apple system are calming responsible for destroying several bio weapons research facilities. We have yet to confirm the destruction or existence of any of these stations. While Umbrella-Weyland-Yutani has adamantly denied supplying CMC and mercenary firms with the t-virus, the data we have received indicates the contrary."

Fujisawa laughed at the multiple disclaimers on the fourth rate news network. The tabloid network had allotted a ten minute slot to the story, "No offense Logan but the Galactic Enquirer?"

Logan clicked off the broad cast as it moved to the traditional pundit back stroking and safety reassurances of the outer rim, "Seems your girl got caught up in something big and got lucky."

The two professors shared a look of disbelief as they ate and drank. Logan nodded as he idly thumbed the files, "Ah, hell."

He pulled up a file then set it on the over head as he accessed another database, "Think I found your missing link."

An encrypted CMC file as it unfold he placed the files side by side. A picture of Ellen Ripley and an extensive file appeared in between Ranma and Kodachi's, "Looks like your Kodachi and Ranma are hybrid experiments."

Xavier blinked in disbelief, "How did you come to that conclusion."

Logan shrugged and took another mouth full of food. While the question was ignored Fujisawa gaped, "What kind of insanity was Umbrella brewing up."

The ex-marine just nodded, "Same brew they have been selling for the past four hundred years probably."

Fujisawa looked as his watch and nearly gagged. Xavier on the other hand was practically drooling with the implications of the experiment. While Umbrella hadn't been practicing ethical science their witches brew had coughed up the proverbial diamond. The scruffy professor scratched his chin and scowled, "Ah hell. I got to get back."

He pulled his data crystal. His back arched and stretched as he wandered out, "I'll be back later. Might as well tell Miz what is going on if she hasn't figured it out yet."

Once Fujisawa left the room Logan turned to Xavier and scowled, "Don't make me kick that grin off your face."

Xavier retorted, "This could be a gold mine for the medical community."

"They said the same thing about the Resurrection Project." Logan grunted and picked up the remainder of Fujisawa's noodles. He glared at Xavier, "Don't feed me medical line either we both know what this is really about."

The bald professor eyed is retainer, "Just what was the Resurrection project."

"Read the damn file. I'll be in the armory synthesizing incendiary rounds." Logan walked out of the room. He knew exactly what this meant to Xavier and just how far he would pursue this possible lead.

As Fujisawa settled into the taxi to the train station he typed, "Nanami- Got your message and started in on the project file."

He paused wonder just how to say what he wanted, "While your conclusion is sound the process seems flawed. I'm not sure how much proprietary tech you are working with but I might be able to better help with your problem if you can discuss the method. Don't forget your safety glasses acid burns hurt a lot. -Proff Masamichi."

"I think..." Nanami said shaking. "I need a shower."

Ranma nodded. "Alright. You do that. I'll take care of things in here."

"Thank you Ranma," she replied as she walked off towards the shower.

"Hey, Nanami!"

She turned about and looked at him.

"Yes?"

"Make sure not to get any blood on the rug, okay?"

As soon as the words had left his mouth, Ranma felt the very real urge to strangle himself. Sure, he didn't want to have to shampoo the carpet because she was dripping gore but he probably should have tried to think of a more tactful way of putting it? Like, say, in any other way mentally conceivable perhaps?

Pausing for a moment Nanami's features darkened, as she fell slightly farther back into her funk.

"Of course."

Not stopping to say another word, the girl turned about and retreated up the steps, doing as he asked and making sure not to walk over any carpeted area.

As the female retreated Ranma could only face palm, and in an angry, frustrated tone, he began to berate himself. "Don't get any blood on the rug, you say. Great job, Saotome. With lines like that, no wonder she doesn't want to sleep with you. Idiot."

Sighing dramatically she began to disrobe. He was going to have to clean up this mess and the last thing he wanted was to have to throw out a perfectly set of clothes. While Kodachi had bought him more than he could ever see himself needing, still, waste not want not. It also meant he could slip into something a bit more comfortable without damaging anything.

Looking to his side he glanced to the captured invader that lay unconscious on the floor. As for this asshole, he quickly frisked him of any annoying toys he might have. After netting himself a two shot holding pistol, a fine looking knife, a cell phone, and the man's wallet, he drug the figure to a barrel at the side of the room. With a light kick, he knocked it on its side, threw the man inside, and then flipped it so the open end was facing down, sitting over the grate like flooring. That way the dumb bastard wouldn't smother to death. Then, he simply pinned it under a large, heavy crate. With the amount of leverage the man could generate from that position, there was no way he'd be moving it any timer soon, not with 500 kilograms of wheat sitting on top.

"Now how the hell am I going to deal with this mess?" Ranma thought out loud. "I don't even know how many bodies there are even!"

"Five," stated a dispassionate, even toned female voice.

"What?" Ranma jumped, instinctively raising his tail to strike. "Who was that?"

"I am the Ship's Artifical Intelligence," replied the disembodied voice.

"Um, okay," Ranma almost forgot they'd even had one. Last he'd heard of it was when 'Captain' Nanami had reprogrammed the damned thing and had him give it his name so it would listen to him. "So why are you talking to me now?"

"You made an inquiry," it replied. "My internal sensors detect five deceased individuals on the ship."

"Wait," Ranma cut in. "You know where everyone is on the ship?"

"Affirmative."

"Then couldn't you have warned Nanami that someone was coming onboard or something?"

"I not requested to do so," the computer replied. "Shall I do so in the future?"

"Hell yes," Ranma replied. "Always tell us if someone is coming onto the ship... and always make sure the doors are locked and not to let anyone in unless we say they can come in. Alright."

"Affirmative."

Ranma sighed. "Great. Now I just have to figure out where I am going to stash these bodies."

"Manual access to the solid waste disposal tank is located on Deck 2," the computer said.

"Solid waste disposal?" Ranma blinked. What the hell did she mean solid waste disposal? Wait a second... "You mean the toilet?"

"Affirmative."

Looking down at the bodies he frowned. It didn't feel quite right. While they might have broken onto his ship and threatened one of his females, they were still people. It didn't feel right just flushing them down the toilet.

"Won't they clog up the pipes or something?" Ranma wondered.

"The Primary Solid Waste Disposal tank includes an internal grinder to ensure that all solid waste is reduced to a slurry, as to avoid any blockages in the system."

He grimaced. So much better. So not only does he flush them down the toilet, but he reduced their bodies to paste. Wonderful.

"I'm afraid to ask this, but what happens then?"

"The waste is fed into the incineration subsystem where it is reduced to carbon ash and water. The ash is then vented from the ship while the water is recycled into the ship's water storage tanks."

"Ick."

So they were drinking purified toilet water. The more he learned about this space travel shit the more he looked back fondly on his backpacking days, back when the skies were clear, the air was clean, and the water wasn't something you drank three days ago. Still, he had to admit that he was a bit shy for options, and while he had no desire to further degrade these men by desecrating their corpses, the fact did remain that yes, they did break into his ship and tried to kill one of his girls. He personally would have attempted to keep the body count down, but what was done was done, and he wasn't going to be shedding any tears as to their loss.

While he actually would prefer to dispose of them in a slightly more respectful way, like throwing them all in a mass grave out in the woods where no one would ever find them, or dumping them in a sewer for the rats to snack on, he guessed that this was just karma.

"Pieces of shit get flushed down the toilet, I guess." Ranma remarked.

"Please be sure to check and and all bodies for any hard metalic objects that may cause a blockage in the grinder."

Ranma snorted. He'd been raised by Saotome Genma. "Like I wasn't going to loot the bodies."

"Please be sure to check for cybenetic implantation before disposal."

"Robot parts," Ranma groaned. "You're a freaky alien thing and people got robot parts. Welcome to the future, Saotome."

Oh well, he admitted to himself, while he was a fish out of water, things could have been a lot worse. He could have been in girl form when he died, and they could have brought him back with the _other_ Kuno. Now that would have been a nightmare.

With a shudder, and then a sigh Ranma started up the steps. In the dining room he was met by the sight of two crumpled over bodies and mangled wood work. A tweak of his nose told him that Nanami had been injured, and looking down at the kitchen floor he guessed he knew where. Thankfully the tiling seemed to be acid resistant, which meant one less hole in the floor to figure out a way to patch.

Walking over to the pantry he pulled out a box of baking soda, which he casually dumped on top of the blood pool, causing it to react in a large fizzy mess. He'd mop it up later, but at least this way it wouldn't burn a hole in anything.

Looking up to the paneling he sighed. Compared to some of the messes he'd had to fix in his past life, it was easy. He already had the tools, he just needed to get his hands on the materials and things would be as good as new. Still, getting oak paneling on an isolated world dominated by grass lands wouldn't be cheap, but hey, life sucks buy a helmet.

Looking back to the bodies, he was a least satisfied to see that they weren't leaking anything onto the rugs, so he didn't have to break out the shampooer. Yeah. Blood stains were always a bitch to get out.

Grabbing the two by the ankle the started down the steps.

From here the job was simple. Strip the bodies of any valuables, make sure they didn't have any metal on them, and then feed them into the chipper, like some mobster from a bad American mobster movie. After that he guessed he'd just hose off the deck, make sure Nanami didn't bleed into anything important, and interrogate the survivor once Kodachi got back.

"Yeah, computer," he said aloud, "One more thing?"

"Yes?"

"Disconnect the waste tank from the water system until you're done doing what ever it is you do to the bodies. I don't want to be drinking no dead people."

"Affirmative."

With a rather comical squeal of small rubber wheels, the glorified and heavily overloaded golf-cart came to a stop under the wing of the Firefly-class freighter. Kodachi wasted no time in picking up Winry and carrying her swiftly towards the main hatch.

 _Honey! I'm home! Do try to be presentable!_

Ranma greeted her there. She could feel anger and frustration pouring off him as she approached, and she was about to ask for clarification when it hit her senses; the smell of acid, blood, and death.

"What happened?" Kodachi demanded.

"We had company here. Nanami dealt with it, but there's a few complications." Ranma explained as he ushered Kodachi and her new charge inside. Already he could feel the new node forming in their network.

"I take it you had complications of your own?"

Nanami was sitting in the main room upstairs, still in her Hybrid form, looking fresh-showered and newly dressed, but still rather bedraggled and put out. She, too, evidentially sensed the new addition to their shared mental community, as she didn't bother to change out of her dark-skinned Hybrid appearance. Still, she managed a rather vinegary mood and resigned quip as Kodachi entered.

"ANOTHER one? Honestly, why can't you people just collect stray animals, like feral dogs or abandoned cats? Why does it have to be young gir-right, I should complain. Never mind."

Winry took no notice of the cynical-sounding semi-human in the sweats sitting at the lounge bar, nor the bloodstains on the floor, nor the smell of death her already enhanced senses HAD to be picking up on; her stomach growling she was gravitating towards one thing. FOOD. Kodachi pushed the new addition to the family towards the galley; not that she needed much persuading or help, as the young girl found enough strength in her feet to drop out of Kodachi's grip and scuttle towards prey.

"I was attacked by several men. They evidentially thought I was a 'synthetic', and were careless about who else they hurt in their efforts to capture me. They failed, but the girl was mortally injured. You?"

"Several guys broke in, saw me like this. They freaked, I freaked, I killed two of them. Ranma bagged the third guy with them. Two dead, one down, no conversions. I think they're with some guys who jumped me earlier when I went into town and I beat up. One of those guys thought I was a synth too."

"Hmmm...I wonder if there's a connection. It would be too much of a coincidence if we ran into three such groups of hoodlums."

Kodachi took a sniff at the brutish-looking man Ranma had tied up and gagged, and dragged into the room.

"He smells familiar. Definitely something similar about them."

Ranma pulled the man back and started to take him back to the hold, then thought about it again, and simply stood the guy up in a corner. They'd have questions for him.

Ranma groaned. "Great, we got a gang then. Guy probably has backup."

"Then it's imperative that we cut our visit short here and get offworld before this guy and his buddies are missed. We gotta find that other girl first, grab her, and then we go! We can dispose of the bodies of the goon squad here in deep space, and ...well, do something with the live one!" Nanami wasn't sure what, but just out and out murdering the guy didn't sit right with her.

"Ah...Bodies already taken care of, and we got a really helpful computer by the way, but about going..." Ranma started.

"No, oh no. Tell me the bad news."

"Well, as far as I can tell, no vital systems were hit, and I discovered this tub has some armor under the rust, but the hatch took enough damage that we might not be able to close it fully if we're going to take off."

"We're going to have to risk it. I don't wanna be discovered with two missing kids and corpses in the garbage disposal, let alone a live witness. People might get the wrong impression."

"You wanna see how long we can breath vacuum again? 'Cause that's what we'll be doing if that doesn't get repaired first."

Nanami remembered their decontamination effort when she'd hedged on their xenomorph-like ability to adapt to environmental extremes to survive full vacuum for several minutes. They had, but it sure hadn't been comfortable, and Nanami really didn't want to do that again.

"All right, all right, we'll try flying to another part of the planet maybe, and try to pick up some tools to fix the damage before we lift for space. I don't want to cut it any closer." Nanami threw up her hands in exasperation. "Is this going to EVER get easier?"

"Shit happens."

"Your plan has merit, if young Winry there can help; she is a mechanic by trade. I'm sure she can fix the damage." Kodachi offered.

"She better, because she's now in the same boat as we, literally. I really HATE to recruit help like this!"

"It was either that or explain another corpse."

Nanami's expression softened, somewhat. "Okay, okay, always saving lives, aren't you, 'dachi? At least you have that excuse; I just screw up."

"I'm sure you had your reasons."

"If only I knew what they were!"

"Shit happens." Ranma and Kodachi deadpanned simultaneously.

"Well, there goes our restocked supplies." Nanami observed as the sounds of gluttony could be heard from the galley.

"We could always eat this guy if he doesn't cooperate." Ranma thumbed at the trussed-up and gagged thug stood up in the corner, noticing the man had come to and was trying not to be noticed. Ranma accentuated his comment by snapping his teeth at the man.

"HHHFTTPH!" The smell of fresh urine and feces assailed acute Hybrid senses.

"I really wish you hadn't done that, Ranma." Nanami wrinkled her nose.

"Agreed, Ranma-kun. You get to clean it up."

"Come on, Loa! Let's move! We got a heist to pull."

"I don't like this! We're supposed to have a full complement of men for this plan, and we're missing ten guys already! We should seriously rethink this plan! Something ain't right!"

The hulking bullish Combat Synthetic would be hoof-pawing the decks like the creature he resembled in build and demeanor if he was any more massive. He was definitely unhappy.

"Loa, you didn't like those guys anyway; local trash, remember? I suspect if anything else this should go easier without those yahoos! And if they're in trouble someplace else? Should make our job easier if they're distracting the cops! Now get your ass in gear and let's get moving. I agree; this doesn't feel right. So let's get this over with and offworld where it WILL be right. Okay, guys, let's move!"

Grumbling all the way, Lao shrugged on his armor-jacket, bandoliers, and heavy automatic shotgun. True, he didn't like Dean and his associates any, and their lack of discipline was a telling and dangerous thing in his line of work, but still, one didn't ignore disruptions like this. It wasn't how he'd gotten to be an OLD renegade Combat Synthetic. He'd have to be extra careful and extra watchful in his role as the 'pigman' in the raiding party, what with this latest twist in a job he really wished he hadn't been so desperate that he'd signed on to it. Before they exited the trawler, he grabbed another belt of ammunition; better to have too much than to wish for more later.

 ***BBBRRRAAAAPPPPTTTTTT***

"DAMN! RALLY, LOOK OUT! THOSE THINGS -JUMP-!"

"I'm on it, May! I'll keep us above them, you keep spotting them!"

Rally threw the gunship into another pass. Between her piloting and firing the chaingun, and May spotting and firing the heavy ordnance, they'd been doing a fair job of copter-chopping Bugs on the plains of Ceti Alpha VII, once they knew what to look for.

That was the problem; there was a whole LOT of Bugs, once they'd started looking.

"Jeez! There's so &%&*ing MANY of them!"

"Preaching to the choir, May! When are the rest of the guys getting out here?! We don't exactly have infinite ammo here!"

"Last I heard they had to recharge all the 'copters they pulled back and rearm them! Last estimated ETA was another forty-five minutes!"

"Damn! They can't get out here any sooner?! These things are multiplying like...like BUGS!"

"That's what they said! I get the impression things are pretty confused back there.""

"They better get UNCONFUSED, or we're all Bug-chow!"

"There's another group at nine o'clock! Three Drones!"

 ***BBBRRRAAAAPPPPTTTTTT***

 ***FHHOOOOSSHHHHH***

The next several minutes were spent chasing over the landscape, going in and out over the low ridges that broke up in the plains in this region of Mudpie. If they saw a Bug, they killed it, and to their dismay they saw a LOT of Bugs.

"Rally, I think I'm onto something! All these Bugs are coming from the same general direction...Extrapolating...Okay, Boss was right, sending us out with the penetrating radar!"

"What you got, May?"

"Tunnel mouth ahead in the ridge. Looks artificial. I see Bug sigs coming out of it."

"Give me a heading, May."

They were soon passing over the indicated location; it was difficult to see bare-eyed, but there was something down there. Rally found it by following the weave of old leveled lanes and switchbacks that serpentined into the ridge.

"Old mine...figures. Bet that's where the Bugs are hiving!"

"I'm not taking that bet and I'm not about to go down and check! I got an opening down there and I got too much motion coming up it!"

"Inform HQ we think we found Bug Central!"

"Trying...damn! Not getting through! Must be that big thunderstorm moving in ! Rally, I'm getting some serious interference, and I can't make contact! We're going to have to get clear of that atmospheric gunk between us and them before I can send in the clear!"

"No time, May! What do we have left on the pylons?"

"I got six heavy incends, four frags, and the 'Winders! What you got in mind?"

"Slave everything over to me, May, my trigger. Including the 'winders. I'm going for the shot!"

"Rally, that ain't going to collapse the mine. That's going to take heavy napalm and foot-by-foot!"

"I know that, May! But I'm not leaving that door open down there while we run for help! I gotta try to block that shaft; leave the Bugs too busy digging their way out to be running loose! Give me weapons on my stick, May!"

"All right, Rally. Going to be a tricky shot from the air, though, the way that shaft's situated, if you're trying for down the throat."

"Just watch me!"

"Okay; weapons command switched over. Trigger A gives you the rockets, trigger B gives you the AAMs."

"Okay, let's do this!"

The big old gunbird spun, turned, and steadied under Rally's firm hand, lining up its nose with the mine shaft below.

"Steady, steady...just about on target-"

 **KERSHRRAAKKK!**

 _BBBBBRREEEEEEEPPPPPPPPPPPP!_

" _*WARNING! LOSS OF MAIN POWER! CRASH IMMINENT!CRASH IMMINENT!*"_

"WHAT THE HELL!"

Rally's fingers triggered off the missiles in the sudden buffeting, the salvo of incendiaries and fragmentation rockets flying wild, splashing off the rock faces around the mine shaft entrance.

"SOMETHING JUST HIT OUR ROTORS! WE'VE LOST LIFT!"

Indeed, the heavy old helicopter was jerkily autorotating towards the ground, its ruined engines throwing off smoke and fragments of their innards.

"Who-?!"

Just then the mortally wounded aircraft was buffeted by the passage of something passing just overheard. Rally caught an impression of something shimmering and nearly invisible, but the shape of the shimmer showed a distinctive bat-like wing shape.

A shape-motif that Human colonist militia were taught to recognize as much as they were taught to recognize Bug-sign, and which they hoped they NEVER encountered.

"Fucking HUNTERS-!" Rally swore. First Bugs , now the damn YAUTJA!

Rally glanced at her controls, ignoring the blaring alarms and the flashing distress lights, then she grabbed the stick again, feeling for the trigger.

"Rally! We're going down! What are you doin-?!"

Rally ignored May as she fought the shuddering machine, grabbing back whatever small measure of control the rapidly dying aircraft would give her. She managed to lift the 'copter's nose and turn it to track the barely visible Yautja craft.

 _Bastard's coming around for another pass! Wasn't sure of he made kill the first time!_

 _Good._

The 'copter tried to corkscrew around its own rotors. Rally, almost by sheer force of will, kept the aircraft pointed the way she wanted it.

TARGET ACQUIRED

 _Open wide, you vulture! HUNT THIS!_

 **FFEERRRRRSSHHHUUUUUUUUUUUU!** **FFRRRRROOOSSSHHHHHH!**

Like greyhounds after a rabbit, the two air-to-air missiles leaped off their launch rails and screamed at maximum acceleration towards their target.

Rally had the satisfaction of seeing the alien Hunter craft try to dodge over the incoming missiles, only to present a broader target to them. Both hit solid, exploding against the wings, the wavering appearance of the alien becoming more substantial just for a moment before it splintered apart.

Then the sky was spinning, filled with smoke and flame and the onrushing ground as the copter lost any pretense of being under control and dove for the ground. Mounting gee-forces punched the breath out of Rally, and cut off May's nascent scream.

Rally's last thought before her head slammed into the forward panels was how the earth seemed to open up and swallow them.

He smiled as he eyed his objective. It was a simple issue of him and the target. Drawing back his weapon he took a deep breath and felt the zen. Just him and his weapon. Him and the target. He could feel the Zen. He was one with the universe. He was a leaf on the wind. There was no spoon, and all of that spiritual nonsense. Feeling that the time was right he released, and...

"Sir, we have a priority message!"

Colonial Director Loten Punder cursed as the golf ball rebounded off of the edge of his coffee mug and rolled under the table.

"Put it through," he cursed through gritted teeth as he say down at his extremely expensive leather office chain, which was made from baby lamb skin, because nothing was too good for a man of his tastes.

He sighed as the image of his incompetent local security chief popped up on screen. Why he had hired this man, he'd never know. The former marine knew how to shoot, but he had no understanding of the intricate world of corporate politics. He just didn't get how to play the game.

"What is it this time Cho?" he sighed, "Pick pockets? Cow tippers? Did Little Timmy fall down the well?"

Seriously, he was sick of being informed of every little irksome problem on this planet. He was tired of hearing about every mugging, rape, and murder on this frontier hole. It wasn't his problem if pirates were picking up colonial girls for the deep ring slave markers, or if some local thugs were shaking down travelers. At least, it wasn't as long as it stayed out of the news and he got his cut of the action. He wanted to hear about the real problems, like theft and damage to corporate property. Problems that really mattered.

"No." Cho replied tersely. "Bugs. We have a xenomorph infestation," he replied bluntly.

Plunder's eyes went wide. Okay, that was important, and he knew his next action after this call would be to relocate to his private yacht and then seal the doors behind him. He could manage the damage control from the safety of his own flying bunker, thank you very much.

"That is... bad." he said, after a moment's thought.

Very bad. It really would do a number on the profit margins. Planets with past bug problems always suffered from the bad publicity. Even after the infestation was burnt out, it seems no one wanted to settle on a planet where have been bugs, on the off chance there might be a couple eggs hidden off to the side ready to plant one of those little demons in you and start the mess all over again.

"Yes, it is bad," Cho said through gritted teeth. "And it seems to be reletively well established. We need to contact the CMC immediatly."

And have the planet get plastered all over the news as a bug world? Never! It could ruin this colony! It could ruin the company! He could not allow that to happen.

"No," he replied. "We do this in house. The company has not spent a fortune to buy you all of those gunship helicopters, killer robots, and fancy guns simply so you can call in the troops at the first sign of trouble. Do your job, Cho or I'll find someone who will."

"I guess I'll have to make due," Cho said through gritted teeth, "But mark my words, you will regret this."

As the screen went dead he couldn't help but smile. Yes, there was a good chance that they'd overrun the colony and he did doubt that the second hand armaments they'd bought the security would be all they needed to hold themselves over. He had a contingency plan for that.

Leaning back he smiled. Every colonist, every piece of equipment on this rock had an insurance policy on them, filed by the company in case of loss. If the entire colony was a write off, it would actually be worth more than the colony itself. After all, they could just burn out the area with a couple of dozen nukes and start over the next continent over.

Yes. He had everything in hand, everything but one thing...

"Miss Hasley," he said, pushing the call button. "I need you to send an order to the Comms Center."

"Yes sir?"

"Send permission to strip down the communications core for maintenance. Back date it 12 hours."

He smiled. The core was almost 6 weeks over do for its scheduled overhaul but he knew those communications companies always vastly underrated the endurance of their own equipment under standard use conditions. It was just another example of planned obsolescence, a policy he respected highly as long as the item in question did not belong to him.

Anyways, he hadn't wanted to spend the money for replacements for perfectly good parts so he'd told them to hold off. With how hidebound those goons were though, he knew that they'd start stripping it down and disposing of the old the moment they got the okay.

Picking up what he liked to call his dirty work phone he made a call. Not even bothering to say hello, when it was answered he simply said, "Mr. Creedy, I'd like you retrieve a crate of Tacyon signal boosters from supply. You can consider them yours."

Now everything was in hand.

Standing up he smiled and looked out the window.

Time to get to the ship.

"There it is, man; Payoff Central! Sound off, guys, you ready?"

"Aye!"

"Yayh!"

"Here, Boss!"

"In position!"

"Likewise."

"Loa?"

"Loa!"

"Yes, sir?"

"Ge it in gear, you dumb bull!"

"Sorry, sir...Ready!"

"Don't you dare screw this up for us, you fac-fuck!"

"No, sir, I will not!"

"Good. Yergin, what do you see?"

"No activity up front."

"Yuri?"

"Pair of unmarked vans in the back! Look like Company issue."

"TWO of them? Unmarked? There's only supposed to be one! And it should be an armored van! Any security in sight?"

"Nope...nobody moving out here!"

"Well, that's interesting...unmarked vans...Hot damn! Company must be transferring extra into the vaults! And they don't wanna let anybody know it! Lay on the security and everybody knows you got something worth stealing, lay low and nobody notices!"

"If you say so, Boss."

"Oh, I say so! Maybe things are looking up for us finally! Okay, we do this! Everybody, in and do it! Urkle, drop their security!"

"Right on it!"

Quickly and quietly the bandits stormed the structure, running up to the vans and the loading dock. Two drivers were quickly ambushed and taken out with silenced weapons. The main team ran for the loading dock doors.

"Hey! The door's already open! What the-"

"Never mind! In! Urkle!"

The bandit compgeek eagerly ran for a service panel, pulling tools from his overalls. He quickly pulled open the access and got to work.

"Hey, boss! Something's not right here!"

"What the hell is it, Yuri?"

"I found a guard here, and he's already dead! Dude's throat slit!"

"So?"

"I didn't geek him!"

"Hey, boss! Security's ALREADY been taken down here!"

"Great work, Urk!"

"No! I mean somebody took it all down before we got here! I haven't done a thing!"

"What the hell are you talking about!?"

"Hey...there's another bank dude here...he's dead too!"

Hulking Loa, who'd brought up the rear, began to get that BAD feeling again...He quietly began edging back towards the loading dock doors, fingering the big autogun in his hands.

His boss seemed more inclined to argue with his people than to respond to the growing sense of WRONGNESS vibing through the place.

Thus, despite the readiness of the gang to storm the place, they were caught offguard when a body of uniformed men came around the corner, pushing several large carts loaded with cases.

Fortunately, the newcomers were as nonplussed by the sudden appearance of a motley group of armed men in their way

"WHO THE ^&*% ARE YOU!?" The shout was near-simultaneous.

Nobody knew who fired the first shot-

*BBBRRRAAAPPP!*

-But it didn't matter, because that first shot became a firefight within a microsecond.

 **ZARF!ZARF!ZARF!**

 **BRAKKA-BRAKKA-BRAKKA**

"It's a TRAP!"

 **KER-CHOW! BATOOM! *KRAK*KRAK*KRAK!**

"DUMBASS RENTACOPS!"

"I THOUGHT YOU FUCKING SECURED THIS PLACE!"

 **SKKKROOWW!**

A luckless Yuri screamed as he lit up like a torch, the plasma blast that killed him vaporizing his chest.

 **BRAKKA-BRAKKA-BRAKKA**

 **CHUNGA-CHUNGA-CHUNGA**

Loa backed up around cover, laying down suppressive fire from his big gun, as the bandits fell back, or, in some cases, just fell down, their bodies ripped apart by the return fire from what had to be Company Security.

"YAAGGHHH!"

Peters, the safecracker, spun around as he tried to run for cover, clutching the hole in his neck. He went down, his legs limply kicking as he tried and failed to get up, but succeeded in painting the floor red with arterial blood.

"WE'RE GETTING OUT OF HERE!"

The team leader emptied the clip of his machine-pistol as weapons fire plucked at his body armor, and he fell back towards the entranceway.

*BBBRRRAAAPPP!*

As another one of his colleagues went down, short a head, Loa backed out of the loading bay, expecting to see police vehicles behind them, closing the trap. To his astonishment, there was nobody.

Behind him, the bandit gang was spilling out in to the loading dock apron, scrambling for distance as the fire followed them outside. Recklessly they fled down the narrow ramp for escape.

"Sir? Incoming call."

"I can see that!"

Plunder looked at the blinking light on the commconsole of his armored limo with disdain. Really, couldn't it wait? He really had more important things to do right now than to take calls. Like get to his executive shelter waiting at the spaceport for him. On the other hand, the only people who had access to the comm-codes in his car were ones he currently had taking care of truly important business for him. Best to see what was going on.

"Yes?"

"Vandal here. There's been a complication with your account withdrawal from the company vaults, sir. The tellers ran into a group of armed men. There's been a firefight. We've taken casualties."

"Armed men? Security?"

"No, sir. Looked like a bunch of mercs. No standardization. They seemed as surprised as we were to be seen there."

Oh-ho! The thought that the renta-cops under Cho had actually NOTICED something else, when they should be running around scared of Bugs, and had twigged onto the little operation at the company bank evaporated. In fact...

"Are you saying that somebody just actually tried to ROB us?"

"Seems that way. Not that it did them any good; we chased them out and it looks like they took refuge in the sewer system. Should I pursue?"

Plunder mused and smiled. This was just TOO good to be true!

"Did they disrupt bank _activities?_ "

Vandal caught the emphasis; "No sir. Your property is safe and sound."

Said 'property' being the contents of the Company vault and safe deposit boxes, whether or not they belonged to Loten Plunder or not. .

"Then don't don't waste time or men going after them. There's a big thunderstorm coming up; they'll just drown like rats in the sewers. Anything's left, the militia can take care of them later, AFTER we're assessed the DAMAGE they did. You just get your people and my luggage packed and ready to go!"

"Very well, sir. Out!"

Plunder leaned back into the plush seat of his ride as it sped for the spaceport and the private slip there. How unexpected, how wonderfully coincidental! He couldn't have planned it better himself! An actual heist! That paranoid pinhead Cho was actually right; there really WAS a burglary being planned! The perfect cover for his own little withdrawal!

Plunder could see it all fall perfectly into place; regardless of what happened, the bandits could be blamed for any damage and loss of property at the bank! Even, if by some happenstance, Cho and his Keystone Cops managed to keep off the Bugs, and any of the would-be bank robbers survived, the finger of blame would point firmly at them as the instigators of the recent violence there, using the colony panic as a cover for their crimes! And even if Security noticed, he could always issue a 'shoot on sight' order for the bandits!

Absolutely, positively BRILLIANT! It was things like this that made Berna Plunder's boy almost believe in an accommodating God.

Nothing like the universe giving you a free pass and the perfect crime.

Inside the sound-proofed limo, the roll of thunder from the approaching thunderstorm went unheard.

Ranma poured a bucket of water over the prisoner waking him up and washing the excrement down a nearby drain. The man sputtered as he looked at his captor and possible executioner. Ranma pulled a chair over and sat down in front of the him, "Now I'm going to ask some questions and you're going to answer them or I might just have to get creative."

The filthy man nodded intently hoping to stay his execution.

Slowly Ranma asked, "What do I call you?"

He hesitated but answered, "Luke Bean."

For a moment Ranma considered the response. He could hear the man's heart beat, watch his pupils and even smell different scents coming off the man but that was mostly useless; his adrenaline was spiked and he smelled like shit. The hybrid's tail slammed against the drum the man was sitting in. The man quaked for a moment as the metal cage reverberated around him, "Dice, call me Dice."

Ranma watched and listened again and considered, one lie maybe one truth. Vague memories about how to lie and tell if somebody was lying really weren't helping him, "Why did you break into my ship Dice?"

The man stuttered, "Sharpie thought it was an easy score. Not every day you see a couple Magnum XL-35s strapped to a firefly."

"So what just bust in and steal the ship?" Ranma probed not really knowing what he was asking.

Dice shook his head. He nervously started to ramble, "Key had a cracker he was going to drop a virus in and we were going to pick up the ship once you left it was supposed to vent atmosphere and we'd pick up a derelict."

Ranma just blinked he didn't understand half of what was said but he went with the next obvious question, "Where is Key?"

Dice didn't answer. The heavy hybrid tail came down on the barrel again. Dice shook with fear as the barrel vibrated, "She killed him."

Pressing the next question Ranma asked, "Should we be expecting anybody else?"

The man quickly spilled, "No, the boss didn't want us to go in the first place. We're supposed to be look outs during the heist. We were going to plant the virus and leave."

A curse escaped Ranma's lips even in his time heists that had bosses meant yakuza. Ranma really didn't want to add the local crime boss to the things he needed to avoid.

Nanami watched the conversation closely and observed Ranma's emotions carefully. Frustration quickly surfaced as the blanket emotion. He was getting answers to questions that really didn't matter and he didn't even understand. She came over and quickly placed a hand on his shoulder, "Perhaps I can get some relevant information out of him."

His frustration increased but he knew what she was getting at. Even in his time he may have known the basic workings of the Asian crime circles but had little or no information about Russians, Mafia or Cartel operations let alone how they would operate today. He stood up letting Nanami have a turn at him. He doubted that she would execute him at this point he moved upstairs.

Nanami sat down and looked over her would be dispatcher, "So, you clan, corporate or just freelance?"

"It was just a stupid job." The man looked down into the barrel, "Just wanted to get off this damn mud ball."

She rolled her eyes, "Yea, the sob story would be a lot more convincing if you didn't shoot me while planing to vent my friends into space!"

Her tail slammed into the side of the barrel, "Now tell me who you are working for and I may just have my psychic friend leave you thinking you just had one hell of a bender."

The man looked away as the barrel reverberated again, "Their boss called ours, fifteen large and a ticket off this mud ball."

Ranma looked into the galley and watched with a bit of awe. The new girl had put away a few pounds a fruit, two full racks of raw pork ribs bones included and at least a pound of dry rice. Currently she was drinking water from a liter bottle that Kodachi was occasionally refilling. Ranma took a long look at Winry scents and all. Smelling both human and hybrid blood he irritably asked, "So, what did I miss."

Kodachi frowned and thought to herself; neither she nor the young girl were at fault.

Her mental monologue continued but Winry started talking, "They thought your girlfriend was a synthetic and I got caught in the cross fire." She smiled and drained another liter of water, "I must be in heaven barbeque never tasted this good. So much better than that all you can eat place Celes likes to hang out at."

Ranma looked at the raw slab of meat, "That's not cooked you know."

Winry blinked several times, "Huh, I usually don't eat a lot of pork. Guess everything on the menu is good when you're dead." Even as she sat there she felt a strange need to go some where. An odd need for privacy but still close to the other three hybrids. She wandered out of the kitchen into the forward passage that lead to the control room. Her hand pressed onto a small hatch that none of the hybrids noticed before. Winry climbed down the ladder into the small room just big enough for a bunk, vanity and a storage locker. Kodachi followed closely behind crawling down the ladder joining the younger woman in the small room. Winry started to undress her self as she sat down in the corner.

Ranma called down seeing Kodachi just standing at the base of the ladder, "Guys, you need me to come down?"

Kodachi watched intently as the naked girl huddled into the corner calmly assuming the fetal position on the floor, "Um..."

He lowered himself into the unused room, "Whoa, more beds here. Didn't even..."

A naked Winry on the floor caught his attention and stopped his babbling. Her skin started to ooze a sticky white substances she closed her eyes seemingly going to sleep.

"I'm going to go look for that other girl." Ranma slowly backed out of the room climbing the ladder. If she was immobilized in some kind of cocoon then who knows who would find her.

Celes was alert, scared and alone when she started to change. Winry was in a mild state of denial, shock and comforted by the mental presence of Kodachi. As Winry's consciousness slipped away her brain waves slowed out of the normal frequencies and moved into kind of hibernation mode. Celes was terrified and Winry was a numb kind of calm.

Something had happened to Celes and she didn't know what. One minute she was delivering food and the next she was stuffing herself at a cheep barbecue joint in town. She was slowly unraveling the blanket Nanami placed in her mind to calm her down trying to figure out what was going on. A familiar voice distracted her, "Hey Celes whats going on?"

The security corps recruit blinked a few times, "Dunno Winry; think I ate too much and passed out."

"Ah man, so did I. They have the best barbecue in heaven." She patted her stomach, "Really puts that shack you like to shame."

Celes blinked, "Heaven?"

Winry sat down beside her friend who was staring at the feature less sky, "Well humans don't survive a three inch holes in their chest." Memories of the incident at the market filtered into the sky. Kodachi placing her self in between the younger girl and the would be kidnappers.

Celes watched the scene play out, "Wow she's fast."

The mechanic replied with a bit of melancholy, "I wasn't."

With a bit of horror Celes gasped as Winry was shot repeatedly. The memory played Winry's perspective as she looked at the wounds. She looked away from the wounds to Kodachi. The ebony skinned hybrid looked at her for a moment before doing something.

Celes hand went to her head the wet blanket Nanami placed on her mind slipped away. As the false memories crumbled Celes got angry, "What did they do to us."

Winry blinked several times, "Us?"

The sky changed and show Celes unloading a pallet of produce. She twitched feeling Nanami's stinger press into her side. Turning sharply on her heel she saw the pajama clad hybrid shift back to her human form.

Winry's delusion and denial slowly yielded to rational thought, "I'm not dead? This isn't some deluded afterlife brought on by too many graphic novels and caffeine."

Celes rubbed her head again, "Winry... those bastards did something to us."

Winry placed her finger to her mouth, "Kodachi didn't seem so bad. If I'm not dead then she did save me."

Celes wanted to be mad. Foaming at the mouth seeking retribution mad but her best friend just wasn't getting on board. She shouted, "Those monsters turned us into monsters."

Her best friend and room mate looked like a hit puppy, "But she saved me and did this really cool trick where she filled out her bra and that firefly had Magnum XL-35s ohhh I wander what they are using for a jump drive. I bet it's a Shaw-Fujikawa or no a Pisces Industrial oohhh what if it's a Cochrane LTD."

As the gear head rattled off possibilities for equipment on Celes really wanted a wall to bang her head against. She was violated, changed in some unknown way and damn it she wanted an explanation. Instead of joining her righteous fury her best friend was indulging in shape shifting fantasies and wondering what kind of toys her new friends had for her to play with. Celes just muttered to herself, "This is going to turn out just like that first speeder we bought isn't it."

Rally's eyes strained against a complete darkness. She blinked several times trying to see anything and confirm she wasn't blind. Unable to penetrate darkness she started moving her body. Her right arm refused to move but she could feel it being restrained. A small bit of relif filled her as she found everything was where it should be. She pulled and tugged only to find her left had a small bit of leverage. She wiggled a bit finding more and more leverage to work with. With each wiggle she found that there just wasn't enough room to break her way out. Rally twisted her neck and let out a whimper. Just a slight tug let her know instantly that her hair was imbedded in the brittle silicate attaching her to the wall. She contorted her self a bit. Her chest mostly free as to allow the future xenomorph she was undoubtedly carrying an escape route. She locked her jaw and turned her torso contorting her body at a painful angle. As her head turned the caught hair remained imbedded in the wall. She silently endured the pain as left arm slipped free of the brittle shell.

Slowly examining her body she hoped to find any tool to get her self free. Her hand patted her chest for a moment causing her to smile. She gripped the steel survival knife and pulled it out of the silicate coated sheath. Her hand moved to the back of her head as she slowly cut away the entangled mess of hair. With her head free she moved to her arm. The pummel of the knife hammered into the brittle silicate shell cracking and cutting away her embedded flight suit and shirt. Each strike caused the fibers of glass to splinter away imbedding painfully in her hand and arms. As she cut her clothing free and shattered the restraining shell her weight pressed down on less and less silicate shell. She tumbled forward just as she struck at the encasing surrounding her legs gave way. She laid on the floor slowly collecting herself a steady mantra went through her head, "I'm not going to die in this hole."

She flexed her knees causing the goo encrusting her pants to shatter allowing her knees to move a freely. Pulling herself into a sitting position she reached down to her right pocket cutting it open. A med kit, flash light and poncho spilled out onto the ground. She picked up the small light turning it on. The survival lit dimly lit the chamber but felt like a blinding sun to her eyes after the absolute darkness. She blinked several times then heard a weak cough come from the side of the room. Rally got to her feet and moved slowly across the uneven ground. She looked at the second form plastered to the wall then scurried back to her med kit.

May's nose slowly dripped a steady stream of fresh blood down her chest. Rally scrambled for the auto injector and a very specific set of vials. Rally slid the binary combination into place and pressed the carbon dioxide cylinder into place. She stood up again moving to May. Her knife slid cut a hole through her flight suit and clothing. Her hand went to May's mouth as she pressed the injector between her breasts; against the center of her sternum. The injector made a loud hiss as it unloaded it's potent mixture of artificial anti-bodies and synthetic white blood cells into May's heart.

The small woman awoke with a scream as the life saving mixture flooded her system and started to do battle with the Xenomorph spawn. Tears filled her eyes as she pressed her mouth against Rally's hand in a vain attempt to be heard. May's mind moved from reaction to assessment and the muffled scream turned into a subdued whimper.

As the needle slid out of May's chest Rally removed her hand and started the painful process of freeing her co-pilot. It was all May could do to remain quiet as human science and xenomorph evolution battled within her body. An eternity of pain later May found her self face down on the cold ground. She looked over at her half naked pilot and weakly joked, "Guess you did get to find out what was under my flight suit today."

Rally continued wrapping her bloodied hands, "Yes, my grand plan was to get us both naked in the depths of a bug hive so I could have my way with you."

"Mhmm, kinky." May rolled over onto her back straining, "Well it seems you succeeded. What now."

Rally moved over to the remains of her flight suit still stuck to the wall and freed a few other items. She freed her sub machine gun and checked the action. Silicate slime had hardened and jammed the mechanism. She managed to slide the clip free and tossed the useless weapon aside. She double checked her shoulder holster that contained her trusty CZ-750. The holster managed to soak up most of the xenomorph slime. Rally tested the action and checked the barrel for obstructions. While the pistol wouldn't be dropping any adult bugs it might just help her feel a bit less naked, "I planned to awe you with my itchy trigger finger."

May struggled to her feet and checked her supplies both still on her and imbedded in the wall. She arranged some smoke, four feet of demo cord, about a pound of plastique, four detonators and pair of fragmentation grenades on a dry patch of dirt. May rolled her eyes, "You and your guns. Makes me wonder if you really wouldn't mind one of _those_ gene therapies."

Rally chuckled at the long standing joke, "And your fascination with explosions is just a fascination with explosions."

The younger woman chuckled but clutched her chest and started coughing uncontrollably. Her friend was by her side nearly instantly, "Come on May we need to get to the medics."

Rally gathered up the explosives and stuffed them into the small poncho she salvaged from the remains of their clothes.

Cho sat on his desk leaning down with his face in his palms. When he'd taken this job he'd hoped to finally get out of this mess. Away from the dying, away from the killing. Just a small colony on the rim where he just had to bully the local roughs, put a bullet in the occasional tough, and keep a reasonable state or order. After 18 years in the Corps, he'd hoped to be able to settle down, put that life behind him and maybe even have a family. What he got was the sleaze bag boss from hell who cared more about the condition of a company coffee mug than he did about human lives, a budget so small he had to buy third hand equipment that wasn't even military grade when it was new, and an area to patrol so vast and overwhelming that the enemy would be able to walk right in the front door, bend him over, and fuck him up the ass before he even knew they were there.

He sighed. And they did fuck him up the ass but good. Perkings, Watson, Krim, and now Vincent and Hopkins. Probably Victoria too. Six good people lost before he'd even really had a chance to even know he was under attack. Probably would have been even worse if that fucking Ed unit hasn't decided to flip its shit, putting them on high alert.

"God," he muttered. Bugs and now Hunters. What a fucking mess, and it changed his chances from slim to pretty much non-exsistant. With the bugs alone he might have a chance, if he instituted the emergency protocols he'd written just for this. The Space Port was the best fortified position on the planet for this kind of defense. Only one tunnel leading to the city sewers, two kilometers of open land on each side, and defensive retaining wall designed intentionally to give those little fuckers a hard time that he'd ordered put up just in case something should happen. Add to that enough stored emergency rations and room to support three-thousand people for six weeks, and you had a redoubt enough to hold out until the calvary arrived.

That would be, if you didn't have the fucking Predators killing you off for sport. Fuck. He'd seen the feeds from Vincent's shopper before she went down. Just what he needed to make things really go south. With them around, they'd be lucky to last half that. Not nearly enough time for that psycho, Plunder, to realize that they were fucked. Sure, he had a plan for that too. Cho had seen too many goddamned men die to ever make assumptions. Better to have a plan in place that you never used than to be forced to fight blind. That gets men killed.

Taking a deep breath he stood up and walked out of his office.

"Hawkeye," he said looking at his blond aide-de-camp. "I need you to get on he line with Bill and Roy. Tell them we're instituting Code Bravo-Green."

She grimaced. Well, less a grimace and more a sickly smile. "Code Bravo-Green sir, as in bugs and hunters?"

He nodded.

"Fuck," she snapped. "Alright, I'll get on the line. You're going to need to give a public announcement."

He nodded. "I know."

Taking a deep breath he looked at the woman and then turned to the window. Outside he saw the lights of Mudpie's only large town glittering as the storm approached. The approaching storm. How fucking appropriate. There were thousands of people on this planet and he was their only real protector. Offically he was here to protect corprate interests but in reality, they were what he cared about.

You know what? Fuck Plunder.

"Hey, Riza?" he asked.

"Yeah?"

"How would you feel about a little revolution?"

She blinked. "What?"

"I want you to put out an all points bulletin on Loten Plunder."

She blinked. "Sir?"

"The son of a bitch ordered me not to call for help. Forget that. I know what my priorities are. Fuck the company, I'm calling for help," he glanced to the blond woman and grinned sickly. "Assuming we get out of this alive, we need that bastard face down in a ditch where he can't try and pull some corporate sleaze on who ever is left. Isolate him from the system, and put an call out on him. Unofficial, no paper trail. Dead or alive. Keep it off the record."

Slowly she nodded, her face hardening ever so slightly. He knew Hawkeye. She was good people and knew that sometimes, you just had to get shit done.

Walking back to his office he pulled up his email and opened his draft file. Inside was a collection of pre-written messages he kept on store, just incase. Pulling up Delta Blue, he sent it marked A1 Priority direct to the Colonial Marine Corps Regional Command. It would be cutting it close, but he knew he could depend on a reply in force, in two to six weeks depending on what was in the area.

Hopefully they'd be alive that long.

Picking up his phone he linked it into the system and made the call of his life. Connecting to the Emergency Boardcast system, he was suddenly connected to every active communications system on Mudpie.

"This is Chief Robert Cho of the Ceti Alpha Security Force. Both Hunters and Xenomorphs have been detected on planet. Everyone is to immediately relocate to the Star Port. Once you arrive you will be run through a checkpoint to ensure that you have not been implanted. This is for your safety and that of those around you. Bring only what you can carry. If you are able to supply additional food and weapons contact our personal and weapons, tell us and we'll send out a. A copy of the civil defense plan is attached to this message. This is not a drill. I repeat. This is not a drill."

Clicking off the phone he took a deep breath and glanced at his screen.

 _We are sorry, but this message cannot go through. Comms-Net regrets to inform you that all connections are down due to maintenance, but service will be restored as soon as is reasonably possible. Thank you for your service!_

"Son of a..."

"We're lost."

"We're not lost!"

The bandit gang slogged their way through the wide, but dark, service tunnel and storm drain. It wasn't a proper sewer, but enough runoff somewhere upstream from the colony's cattle yards lend enough of an aroma to not make a difference in the technical definition.

"Then where are we?"

"Getting away, Turkis!"

"So you say!"

"Shut up and give me some light over on this wall, so I can figure out where we are! Tunnels like this usually have markings for the service people!"

"So you say. And so you admit we're lost!"

Having just been run off the lucrative heist they thought they had in the bag, and having lost half their number in the furball, the bandits were NOT in a particularly good mood, and some were feeling worse than others.

"Well, excuse me for not bringing my GPS!"

"Wouldn't do us any good anyways; we're too far under. Signal won't reach down here." The techgeek, Urkle, tried to sound conciliatory.

"And whose damn fault is THAT? Why are we in the *&%&ing sewers anyway instead of running for the port in our getaway ride?!"

"Because somebody trusted our getaway to the damn locals who decided their little side trip was more important than being where they were supposed to be before SOMEBODY decided to go in without everything being in place first!"

"You implying something, Turkis?" There was a hint of trigger-tension in the boss's tone.

"Well, there is the current cock-up to lend credence to a need for a change in management, ROGER."

The boss, who always insisted on being called 'Boss' apparently in imitation of the 'need-to-know-only' crime family dramas, bristled at the use of the name.

"And I suppose you'd have done any better? Right now these tunnels are likely the BEST place we can be! You saw the setup back there! That was a TRAP! And I'm sure they were on the look out for any surface transport we might have propositioned! THis way, at least, we can dodge around them, get to the ship, and get out of here!"

"Without our money!"

"Yeah, without the money! Screw the money and the job! It was a trap, so the whole job's blown anyway! I'm officially declaring this job blown!"

"I coulda told you that already!"

Loa, bringing up the back, didn't say anything, just stoically tuning out the bickering among the rest of his colleagues while he tried to listen for any signs of pursuit, his autoshotgun cradled in his massive arms.

"Hey, I think this is the way! This oughta surface at the outskirts of town if we hurry!"

Urkle was standing next to a sideshaft, his flashlight momentarily glinting off slick wetness in the shadows.

Only the slick wet shadows MOVED.

"-WhGYAHHH!"*CRUNCH*SHRED*

"WHAT THE HELL?! URKLE!"

The scream from the shadows was cut short with a liquid-sounding hiss.

That was when the shadows reached OUT.

"AHHH!"

 ***BLAM*BLAM*BLAM***

The muzzle flash from Roger's handgun lit the tunnel in staccato lightning. Loa got a brief glimpse of slick carapaced forms advancing along the floor and walls of the tunnel.

The tunnel erupted into a repeat of the firepower-accentuated confusion back at the bank, with several major differences.

 **BRAKKA-BRAKKA-BRAKKA**

 **CHUNGA-CHUNGA-CHUNGA**

Things were even MORE confused. Strobing gunfire, ricocheting tracers, flying stone and concrete shrapnel, and the smell of burning quickly choked the air.

 ***BRRRRAAPPPPP!***

And it quickly became apparent that their attackers were NOT human.

 ***SCCCREEEEE!***

"OHGODOHGODOHGODHEELLPPMMMEEEE!"

Turkis was an atheist, or at least so he claimed. Evidently he wasn't.

 **BHUTTA*BHUTTA*BHUTTA!**

Loa backed against a tunnel wall, its solidity protecting his rear, while he started backpedaling the way they came, his rapid-fire gun blasting into moving skeletal forms that leapt and pranced in a devils' dance as they launched into the panicked bandits. Careful not to shoot his own people in the intermittent light, he tried to cover their retreat, reaching out and grabbing at least two of his fellows and hauling them past him back down the tunnel while he kept triggering his hand-cannon.

The third time he wasn't as lucky; chitinous bone met his grasp, and a long articulated, bladed tail danced in his enhanced vision, before slamming into him. A toothed tongue ripped at his shoulder, tearing at his armored longcoat. Loa desperately rolled back down along the wall, trying to put some distance between himself and his attacker while he brought his gun to bear.

That was when a bladed tail slammed into his chest, bowling him over and taking him down. His rifle went spinning off into the blackness.

The hunt, a corner stone of a diverse and complicated Yautja society. A juvenile's first hunt would, dictate the course of the young male's life for many years to come. What they hunted and the trophies they were able to bring back would open and close opportunities for the young males just like college acceptance letters did for their human counterparts. On the bridge of the cloaked ship the Hunt-master of this hunt closely listened as his slave reported.

An unarmored and malnourished slave groveled as he read the report, "Hunt-master, the observation ship has been destroyed."

The ancient hunter nodded as he considered the report. To him it was a clear sign that the humans of this world would be suitable prey to bloody the children on. He placed a large armored hand on the console activating a ship wide communication system, "Initiates to your drop pods."

The ancient hunter turned to the slave, "What is the status of the hive?"

Never raising its eyes off the small display the male subserviently answered, "The hive has burned off the growth accelerant and the last scan transmission indicated it is about to spawn a second queen."

Decks below unbloodied Yautja donned armor and weapon. They had trained their entire lives for this one opportunity and every male had a plan. Some would go directly for the hive taking a queen's spine had long been a traditional mark of honor to take a queen's spine would guarantee invitation to a hunting party. Others chose a different prey; bloodied human warriors often garnered much attention especially among the youngest of females. The security forces of this planet apparently had several such warriors. The last target often garnered mixed reception. Human leadership often had impressive resources and defenses at their disposal; making them perhaps the most difficult of prey. Corporate leaders often had the resources to make even blooded males think twice. Killing a CEO would bring out a formidable human bounty hunting party. The bounty hunters that would follow would be spectacular trophies.

The hunt master let out a deep roar that reverberated across the ship a final warning for the juveniles to seal them selves into their drop pods or be vented into space. The cloaked ship launched its one way transports to the surface. An adjudicator ship departed next. Its crew knew that many a young hunter would give into the blood lust it would be they who had to remove the stain from their society.

Kilometers below on the surface the hunted were preparing their own hunt. The juvenile watched as Plunder's men slit the throats of the sentries if Yautja could smile it would have. Instead the learner watched carefully as the group of men proceeded to enter the human treasury. The young Yautja considered making his move. The team spread out to watch the perimeter and loot the holdings leaving themselves vulnerable to a non-human attack. It crossed the nearby roof tops and calculated his actions. He looked at their formation and planed; the roof sentry would have to go first. Use its rifle to take out a guard on the street to sow confusion. However, before his plan could be enacted another human transport moved into position.

The youth watched and studied for a moment reconsidering his tactics. He was quite surprised when the new humans came out of their transport armed. Moving to a better vantage point the young male watched intently. Deciding that his original plan could still work he inched along the rooftop quietly stabbing the corporate sniper through the spine and vocal cords. He picked up the human weapon and leveled it at a random armed male. A single round fired off sparking a frenzied exchange. Watching and waiting he studied his prey carefully.

The second group proved to be inferior prey despite the impressive looking large one. The mutated head and enlarged spinal column would have made a unique trophy. Perhaps he would stalk it after he secured victory over the stronger group. He watched as the routed group moved underground.

His attention returned to the stronger group. They were victorious but did not realize they were short a few members. They too quickly retreated from the skirmish. He followed their transports several kilometers to the human space port. Surveying the building he decided that this would be a formidable challenge.

Elsewhere another young hunter double checked his equipment now that he was on the surface. The young Yaujta was focused on traditional marks of honor rather than the latest fad. From a nearby hill he observed the hive and the mining facility it occupied. With the insects in a phase of expansion the hive would empty out and the drones would search out resources. Only a few mature drones would be between him and his prize. The queen's skull would be his before this hunt was over. He moved through the open space swiftly closing in on an old access building to the barren mine. He could smell the creatures scurrying about the hive.

Climbing to the top of the tower he looked down at the valley below and the entrance above. In the distance he could see the smoldering wreckage of a human craft and a Yaujta ship. The young male let out a howl and waited for a response. No reply ever came. He knew that he would have to ensure that the ship crew were killed and that no abominations were made from the observers. Fate seemed to smile on the young hunter abominations were another source of coveted trophies. Hunting the abomination would have to wait. His window of opportunity to attack the queen was rapidly shrinking.

He advanced to a building attached to the mine. The young hunter knew he was in the territory of the beasts now. A face hugger egg sensed his movement. The egg fell from the ceiling unfolding into its spider like form. There was little more than the sound of the shell unfolding to give the young Yaujta warning. His crescent blade swept up in a rapid arc cutting the spawn in half. His optical camouflage faded away as acidic blood rained down on the armor. The youth paid it no mind and continued moving forward towards the actual mine.

Ranma smiled as he leaned into the couch. That Dice guy had been a pain in the ass, but he'd kept his word. After the interrogation Nanami had basically fried his memory like she she would and they dropped him near the gate of the space port. From how disoriented the guy was, he'd guess that she'd accidentally fried his memories for the last two weeks rather than two days like she'd planned on, but in all honestly, he had a hard time giving a damn. Prick had threatened one of his girls.

His head cocked slightly as he watched Nanami cook. Normally he and Kodachi traded the cooking duties while letting Nanami handle the other stuff, but she said she owed him so she insisted on making dinner. He'd been a bit nervous at first. His experiences with insistent short haired girls and cooking tended to be very bad, so he'd decided to keep an eye on her. Quickly though, she proved to know what she was doing. In fact, if appearances were anything to go by, she might have even been better in the kitchen than he was.

That didn't mean he still wasn't watching her. No, he was doing that for an entirely different reason now. She was in the kitchen in a tank top, apron, and a pair of panties bent over the hot oven, with her tail swaying back and forth so very sensually. He just couldn't look up from that fine, fine ass of hers. He could even smell the constant odor of sexual receptivity that indicated she was revved up and ready to mate.

He closed his eyes and smiled for a moment, fantasizing about making a move. He bet that all he'd have to do was stand up and walk over there. Just touch her arm and she'd melt in his hands. He could take no for an answer.

As for Nanami, it was all she could do to not turn around. She could smell his arousal and it was getting her hot. She'd resisted this long, but she was getting to be at wits end. The last two days had been chaotic, nerve wracking, and generically helacious, starting with that failed mugging and ending with her killing those people. Worst of all, she didn't even really feel that bad about it, which disgusted her on one level, even though she knew on another that she had really been given no choice.

To top it off, her instincts were screaming for a nice pleasant endorphin rush to calm her down, and the best way to do that was a nice fast fuck. That played into her raging biological instinct which demanded that she have a child to perpetuate the species. To top it off, Ranma in his own awkward way had been really sweet.

He was a nice guy, not the kind of person she ever saw herself having a kid with but a nice guy none the less. She also never expected to be turned into some kind of crazy alien hybrid, but as much as it pained her to say, she didn't think she'd be able to last long enough to find her beloved Makoto. While she considered him her best option in a mate, having loved him since she hit puberty, Ranma was no reject for sure. He was strong, he was virile, he was intelligent, and he was someone she knew would protect her and her offspring without question. He was a prize actually, and having his kid would be no loss. She hated to think about it, but he was wearing her down.

Her fears were still there, but in a sense, her some of her fears about bringing another abomination like herself into the world were washed away in a sea of her own hypocrisy. How could she complain about bringing a life into this world when she'd already dragged another unsuspecting girl into this mess. Still, regardless, she really wanted to see what Kodachi's kid looked like before having one of her own.

Slowly she walked over to the oven and bent over to check roast she was making. From where he sat, Ranma couldn't help but release a hiss of excitement for when she bent over, could see the thin line of wetness tracing the length of her womanhood, like an invitation.

Slowly her rose from his seat. That was it. He'd finally taken all he could handle. He had to make a move. He'd take no for an answer but he had to at least make the request.

Slowly he walked up behind her and touched her on the arm.

Even this slight jolt of skin on skin contact between male and female was enough to make Nanami jump. She twisted around and found herself looking face to face with the smiling male.

"What are you..."

He shushed her with a single finger on the lips.

"You only have to ask me to stop."

With that said, he moved in and gently kissed her on the lips.

Roy and his squad arrived at the space port as quickly as they could. The heavily armed men filed out of the lightly armored transport only to be greeted by an irate controller. The squinty eyed man whined as he shoved a some docking paper work at Roy, "Where have you been we reported a gun fire and have been waiting for three hours."

He blinked several times then shouted, "Pair up and fan out. They may already be here."

"Of course the are here you dolt, hub D, pad eight." The pencil pusher eyed the solider, "We haven't seen anybody leave but the roof sensors were tripped shortly after the gunfire stopped."

Roy palmed his face, "The shit gets piled higher." He turned to the security team, "Ramo, Tide start the lock down. Get the scanners set up. Suzy, Hyatt you're with me we're going to check this out. Wolfie, Burt call Cho let them know we've started."

The Roy looked at the access map and then the at the port security coordinator, "Where are the port marines?"

Quickly replying the pencil pusher stated authoritatively, "Mr. Plunder had them all pulled them for an internal security matter. It is supposed to be part of the security exercise."

Rubbing his hand against his forehead he massaged a vein back into his forehead, "Great, look. The entire town is about to descend on this port. We need to be able to defend close to four thousand people. I'm going to go check this out and deal with it. You are going to make sure the staff gets ready."

The pencil pusher complained, "What about the security drill. How are we supposed to meet CMC code with four thousand people crammed into the port."

Roy reached out and grabbed the his name tag, "Prescott, this is not a drill. Get your ass in gear or I'm going to shoot you and get somebody that can do your job."

With a bit of a whimper Prescott quickly agreed. He scurried off to start the lock down. Roy climbed back into the transport with Suzy and Hyatt. He drove through the access gate and down the cargo corridor. He looked at the two girls with him and let out a sigh. Despite the fact that the girls were quite capable even with the assault rifles they were certainly not intimidating. He put the transport into park and the parking supports quickly took the weight of the craft. He looked at Suzy, "Stay here on the gun."

Hyatt and Roy walked forward towards the closed hatch. He looked over the firefly and let out a sigh and mumbled, "Had to be smugglers didn't it." He silently contemplated to him self wondering just how he was going to deal with this. The regulations obviously stated one thing but he really didn't have the time or resources to deal with this. He looked at the air lock and then over at the intercom panel. He pressed the call button and waited.

Nanami let her leg arch up and shift to the side as her arms started to wrap around him. Pressing her mouth to his she rubbed her tongue along his. She closed her eyes trying to concentrate only to find herself extending her ankle pushing her self up onto the oven top. His hands massaged up and down her ribs working in towards the spine stimulating nerve endings she had yet to explore durning her own private sessions. She pulled her head back to say something, anything to make him stop. The warmth of the oven beneath her and his proximity were just too much. Her legs wrapped around his waist.

Ranma slid his hand into the band of her panties as Nanami cooed out and moved into a very willing position. His claw cut into the thin fabric. He pulled the torn cotton garment aside. As she wiggled into position a dispassionate voice announced, "There are two visitors at the main air lock."

Ranma groaned but it was Nanami that growled out, "Tell them to go away."

The computer chimed in response. Ranma eagerly return his attention to Nanami as she latched back onto him. A few seconds later the computer spoke up again, "Officer Mustang insists that we comply with section four of port protocols."

The two hybrids let out a mutual curse as concept of a cop knocking at the door hit them like a bucket of cold water. The two quickly moved out of the kitchen and down to their quarters. Two hybrids went into their respective room and out came one human female dressed in a dark red robe and a human male in a tank top and boxers.

Ranma and Nanami stood in front of the air lock as it slowly opened. Once the doors had opened all the way Nanami greeted Roy in a voice that practically screamed you interrupted something very important, "What seems to be the problem officer."

It took the security officer a second his eyes darted across the cargo bay and he noted it was mostly empty except for a large refrigerator and a few crates, "It is port protocol to investigate all incidents of weapons discharge."

Ranma eyed the smaller woman beside Roy and the transport almost twenty meters back. Winry proved that surviving even rifle fire at close range was a possibility but that big gun on top of the transport would probably cut him and the ship apart if it came down to a fight.

Roy stepped forward into the ship and removed his sun glasses, "Hyatt go back to the truck."

The small woman nodded. Roy looked at the two apparent lovers and shook his head. The ship reaked of sex, death and cinnamon rolls, "Look, I don't have time to do a formal inquiry. Cooperate and I really see no reason to question why the equalizer on your air lock isn't working."

Never one to let a free pass slip Ranma nodded, "How can we cooperate with the port authority today."

Roy made a shot in the dark, "I doubt I have much use for two environmental techs and their supervisor."

Before Roy could make his offer gun fire sounded in the back ground. He keyed his mic, "Hyatt, Suzy whats going on."

The radio quickly replied, "No idea it came from E hub."

Roy turned and leveled his rifle at Ranma, "Is that you?"

Ranma shook his head barely holding back the instinct to change. The truth spilled from his lips like water, "No, they tried to rob us. We just defended our selves."

Nanami quickly added, "We're just making sure the bosses kid get back to her family."

The story was thin and had Roy not been in a hurry, he would have torn it apart. He looked at Ranma, "Get your gear, you're with me."

She really didn't know where that line had come but as soon as she heard Roy's reply she wanted to bang her head against the wall. Ranma just nodded, "Close the door and keep her in her room."

Ranma darted out of sight towards his room. He tore through the clothes Kodachi got him and settled on a pair of dark cargo pants and a black t-shirt. He hoped that dark clothes and a flack jacket would be enough of a disguise to pass as body guard. He pulled on a pair of boots. His eyes settled on the pilfered katana that was sitting in the corner. He didn't know why he grabbed it he just did. Ranma hurried across the cargo bay to a weapons locker. Nanami walked over to him, "We need to find the girl."

He hissed back, "I know but we really don't want him tearing this ship apart. I'll keep him distracted you and Dachi find her." Ranma grabbed an armored vest and pulled it on. He slid the sword under the armor along his back. Next he grabbed one of the pilfered pulse rifles and an extra set of magazines he strapped to his leg, "Maybe I can find out what is really going on here."

Nanami quietly scorned, "You playing solider is a big risk."

He turned and irritably whispered, "Well it's better than plan B."

She didn't have anything else to say, "Look, just don't get shot and stay away from any drones they'll be able to smell your different."

Ranma nodded as he finished getting ready and walked over to Roy, "I've got no reason to trust you."

Roy nodded, "And you're not going any where till that equalizer is fixed." The two walked towards the transport, "So for the time being my problems are your problems."

Ranma sat down in the back seat beside roy, "Just what are our problems."

Hyatt put the transport into motion as the doors closed. Roy laughed, "The hunters decided it's open season on mudpie. We got bugs outside of town and the hunters shot down on of our choppers."

Before Ranma could open his mouth and say something stupid a shout came from above and behind. Suzy nearly screamed, "Hunter!" The small woman opened up with the heavy machine gun. Six barrels spun into action hurling a small wall of depleted uranium down the corridor.

Roy turned on his communicator, "Wolfie, get those motion detectors patched into us. We spotted a hunter."

Ranma opened his door and hustled down the hallway. He looked around inside of the docking area only to see a pair of vans and several dead bodies. His eyes panned around the room but his nose caught the first clue. He back tracked and followed the sent to a small patch of glowing blood. Roy ran up beside him, "Looks like she got a chunk of him."

"We're going to have to stop him." Ranma checked his rifle making sure it was off of safe. He examined the blood trail and moved off.

Roy's hand clamped own on the clone's shoulder, "He could be leading us."

A cocky smirk crossed Ranma's face, "Lets just hope your girl got a good hit in."

"Fuck," Argos Bleak cursed as he dove for cover. Just the thing he needed to make the day go south, a fucking Predator. There he and his men were just unpacking the fucking truck and blamo, McCormick was decorating the country side.

As soon as he was down he spun about and lifted his rifle to his eye, looking for movement. He had no doubts that the Hunters would make short work of Cho and his Red Shirts. The man himself was a good officer, abet soft, but his men were not up to the level of quality needed to deal with the situation. Bleak on the other hand had some of the baddest motherfuckers around, all experiences with corporate black bag ops, and while he was not someone who put the weapon before the man, they were also loaded down with top of the line milspec kit.

"Oakey, Dokey," he growled out. "Switch to IR Trackers and blow that fucker down."

"Sure thing boss!" they said as one. In moments their eye pieces were down and they were scanning the horizon. The two pinheads might not have been the brightest men, but they sure as hell knew how to use a gun and obey orders without question.

For a moment Bleak hissed in a mixture of dear and apprehension as saw the almost trade mark triple laser tracking system of a Predator Plasma Caster snap in on torso, but his moment of tension was alleviated by the squealing dakka of twin M-56a Smart Guns being fired on full auto.

Bleak smiled darkly as an inhuman roar of pain carried over even the roar of the weapon. Dumb mother fucker didn't think they'd have their IR sets designed to see lasers? Hell, then, it deserved to die for being stupid. Unlike many men, he actually didn't have any hard feelings against the aliens. They were deadly motherfuckers and as a fellow deadly motherfucker he respected their skill, their kit, and their work ethic. What he didn't respect was some dumb bastard alien thinking he and his men were an easy score, but again, no hard feelings.

In one the two guns cut out as their ammo ran dry and the two started to reload. From the massive spot of day glow paint job now decorating the warehouse across the strip, he knew that the Predator had gotten what he had coming. Dumb ass made a bad assumption and got killed for it. Just business. It was the way this job worked. Eventually everyone in this business gets whacked. Mercenary work was not a job for those who expected to die in their beds.

"Okay you two, stay on over watch. The rest of you, load Mr. Plunder's cargo and get McCormick zipped up and ready to move. You have five minutes."

"Excuse me," Mr. Plunder's voice cut in over the external speaker.

Made sense that the boss would have switched over one the shooting started, "But you don't really think you're going to be bringing that dead body onto my ship, do you?"

"I don't leave men behind, it's sloppy," Bleak replied. "Besides, even with his body armor ruined he still has almost half a million dollars of gear on."

"Ah, in that case, proceed, just don't get any blood on my carpets."

"Understood."

With every passing moment, Robert Cho found another reason to hate the Corporate bean-counter Kessler had appointed in charge of their cow-town here. He might have had only five thousand colonists or so to look after, so he wasn't given an army to do the job with, but the way things were shaping up, he'd need an army. Especially with the way Plunder had hamstrung his efforts. He needed people to go out and secure facilities, he needed people to go out and warn the populace, he needed people to help move traffic along to the spaceport as quickly and efficiently as possible, he needed people to secure entrance points into the town, he needed people to warn any survivors there might be out at remote outposts and ranches before the storm knocked out communications altogether, he needed people to brief the weekend warriors he'd called in, he needed people in place to calm people and start moving them to the spaceport, he needed people here finish prepping equipment. he needed people to-

Cho broke off his internal 'need' monologue. He figured he already had people working working on three things at once and was on his fourth list of things his fifty-odd man force should be doing right this moment. Already they were overstretched and they'd hardly started.

Mustang had been sent to the spaceport to investigate shots and start securing the 'port. Armstrong was on his way over to seize the communications center and see who he could catch in the act. Kain was with him to see what could be done to restore service. Hughes was heading over to the hospital to start moving patients to the relative safety of the spaceport. Falman had already been dispatched with some of the reservists to the warehouse and market sector to secure food and fuel stocks for transfer to the space port. Jean Havoc was on his way with a handful of men to the refineries around the space port to evacuate the workers.

He looked up from his command board to see his chief wrench-wrangler come into the office.

"Tell me some good news, Reynolds, though I'll settle for some adequate news right now."

"Okay; even shorthanded, we've managed to get the appliqué armor on the vehicles, aside from what's already out. Couldn't have, if we hadn't started already when you pulled that full dress rehearsal earlier, but we got most of the plates and screens attached. We've also got the barriers and barricade plates pulled from storage and loaded on the racks; they'll be ready to lock into place when you need them. I've got the boys and girls spraying with silica sealant, but the bad news is, what with the storm rolling in, the stuff's going to take longer to cure properly. Oh, and the flamers are fully charged; seems that moratorium last year on pinching flamer fuel for home barbecues made a difference, we have the fuel stocks on hand. "

The whole craze of 'cooking with napalm' had been short-lived, and had resulted in a mass-turfing of a dozen wannabe weekend warriors from Accounting, not only for wasting Security resources, but for ruining perfectly good meat with gasoline fumes.

"*Sigh* That's actually better than I expected. Anything else?"

"You want I should boot up the EDs again? After you had them pulled?"

"Yes. But I don't want them deployed until I'm certain we're all behind the wire, and there's nothing out there for them to kill but the enemy."

"Thought you'd say that. I got them all on Standby."

"I don't suppose you could whip up a hundred or so sentry guns while you're at it?"

"Can we hold out for another year and have nothing else for my people to do? Sure!"

"Reynolds, before this is over, I'm going to need every able-bodied person in the force, the reserves, the corporation, the colony, and then some to accomplish that!"

With a sudden shudder and crack of popping metal, the manhole cover flipped up and landed, ringing, on the street. Moments later, a large man squeezed up out of the opening in the ground, pulling himself up by the strength in his massive arms, then, once clear, rolled clear, before clambering to his feet, a heavy handgun suddenly in one hand, pointed back the way he had just emerged from. Harsh, but measured, breaths, only hinted at what the man just endured.

Sensing no immediate attack, but still leery, Loa groaned as he fingered the raw wounds in his abdomen. His armored jacket had taken the brunt of the claws and tail spikes of his attackers, but some of that had still managed to get through and into him. He'd been stabbed and struck by blows that would kill an ordinary man.

Fortunately, Loa wasn't an ordinary man. Or a man for that matter, at least not in the taxonomic sense of the word.

Amestris NeoBiologics had touted the Chimera BIII-series as 'tough as a bull', stronger than average(even for synthetics), with a reinforced ceramic and alloy skeleton laid over with triple-strength myomers. They'd also conveniently layered those myomer muscles over with a thick segmented full-body jacketing of fiber-flex subdermal plating ballistic protection that could stop a machine gun slug, and a cosmetic, but none-the-less functional, dermal-flage that was still leather-tough.

Fortunately, a Bug's tail moved somewhat slower than a machine gun bullet.

Still, the white-oozing wounds hurt like hell. Amestris NeoBiologics hadn't thought to remove or dull the full range of pain sensors from its combat lines. Gave their products 'motivation to excel', or so the brochures said. Yeah, pain was a great motivator not to get hit.

Bugs. Loa had no doubt that was what he'd been fighting in the tunnels. Just about every corporation that produced combat synthetics programmed its products to recognize xenomorphs. Sometimes they were deliberately made to fight Bugs and only Bugs. A lot of times combating the Bugs was the cover excuse for developing synthetics for other purposes. Loa fell in between those reasons; a general grunt combat unit had to be versatile, so he knew Bugs when he encountered them.

Loa looked back at the manhole he'd just clambered up out of, his handgun at the ready, and wished he'd had something heavier. He'd lost his cannon in the fight below, had most of his bandoliers ripped away either in that spinning, spitting, hissing melee, or in his wild retreat through the tunnels. Still, he a few weapons on his person; just not as many as he'd like to have given the circumstances. He hadn't heard any signs of pursuit for the last few minutes since the firefight, but that didn't mean a thing. Bugs were notorious for being quiet stalkers. He was sure he'd managed to kill a few down there, and had managed to bring part of the underground on top of them, but he wasn't confident that would hold them for very long. Bugs were also, by all accounts, persistent demons.

Loa (ANB-BCIII-#2316) wasn't a leader; he was a follower by programming, a intermediary noncom by experience. Strategy wasn't his forte; tactics were, especially if they involved heavy firepower. He could offer advice if anybody was willing to listen, which his previous employer hadn't been inclined to do, hence his current situation.

Loa tried to figure out a plan of action. He didn't see any of the rest of the gang anywhere since that slaughter in the tunnels. In fact he didn't see anybody on the rain-soaked street.

He decided. He'd make his way to the spaceport; back to the ship. If the whole thing at the bank really was a trap and the cops were waiting to capture any stragglers from the gang, he'd inform the authorities of what had happened down in the tunnels. If not, he'd rearm himself from the ship's arsenal and wait to see who else turned up. But what with Bugs on the planet; he doubted he'd be waiting for an answer very long.

That decided, he checked his remaining weapons, and then started to run for the space port. Lumbering and slow at first, but by the time he reached the end of the street, he was moving like the proverbial unstoppable force.

The old Blooded looked over from his perch atop one of the Humans' industrial buildings, towards where he knew the Humans kept their spacecraft. The locator icons on the visual display of his facemask said it all; one of the Unblooded youngsters had blundered into a Human trap and paid the price for his carelessness. A quick review of the youngster's last Hunt-memory showed he'd found a promising target of well-armed warriors, but had fallen to their automated weapons. Another youth, after a promising start, had also entered the area of the space port, and had been hit by another Human warrior group. The former was dead, the latter youth still moving. The dead one might have left his remains to be claimed as a prize by the Humans; that had to be taken care of. The still-living one might yet require such services. It befell the elder Blooded to see to it.

Cursing both the inexperience of youth and the Humans' automated weapons, the Blooded leapt down from his chosen post atop the cooling tower, and made his way towards the spaceport, ignoring the workers milling below. He expected the Hardmeat to gravitate towards the heat and humidity of the industrial site, and the Human security to come in force to try to drive them off in ill-advised effort to try to save their resources, and hated the interruption of his stalk. However, he had a duty to see to...and, perhaps, it wouldn't be such a loss to his Hunting time after all; the two youths had identified for him TWO Human parties well-armed enough to merit his attention. Perhaps there would be a worthy trophy or two among them. That is, if their success wasn't entirely due to their automated toys. It bore investigating.

The Hunter growled as he pulled a hand away from the wound again, a grazing shot that was leaking all over the place and giving his position away. At least, however, that would mean that the Softmeat would likely be following the trail and he was going to know exactly where they were.

He bound the wound to prevent more bleeding with a jury-rigged human style cloth wrap. The med kit was going to hurt, best to save it for later. Then he doubled back on himself, overlooking the trail of his own blood and waiting for the Softmeat to track it ahead.

The young hunter didn't have long to wait as the first red flare of a human presence showed itself. There was some minor confusion for a moment as a much fuzzier reading followed the first, but then the Hunter remembered the nature of many of the walls in this place and took that fuzzy second image to be something of an IR echo or reflection of the first.

He tweaked with his helmet's settings a little bit until it filtered out the confusing extra and focused entirely on the clear shape of a human being stalking through a narrow alley after the blood trail of the Hunter.

Slowly but eagerly, the hunter lined up with the man below, claw gauntlet extending in preparation for the kill. Several almost inaudible clicks under the helmet spoke of the motion of the creature's mandibles as it waited to draw blood and prove itself.

Then came the shearing pain as three feet of steel slammed up through his chest and then slid out again before slicing through the thick muscle and bone of the predator's arm. A third slice slashed up the huge creature's inner thigh and then the assailant, still invisible to the Hunter's tweaked vision, stepped back and shook the blade free of the blood covering it as the injured yautja tumbled to the ground below, not ten feet from Roy.

The security man looked up towards Ranma as the young man came casually down from the high place, resheathing his sword, guaging the fact that he hadn't even heard the man leave from behind him.

Roy shoved the barrel of his weapon into the Yautja's head, to dampen the sound, and pulled the trigger. Just in case the damage Ranma had inflicted hadn't finished him off.

"Well, that's one down," Roy said carefully. "Let's move on."

"Right," Ranma said.

May collapsed to her knees as her stomach decided that another round of dry heaves might just expel the parasite in her body. Rally eased over to her and weakly teased, "Come on there can't be that much left in your stomach."

The smaller teen turned and glared at her partner, "If Cho isn't dead when we get back I'll kill him."

Rally nodded and muttered, "Yea just don't kill him too badly we need him to push through those damn releases."

"Yes, then the thousand years of pain begins." May stood up and the two started moving forward again.

The two followed an old set of wiring in the hope that it would lead them out. As they rounded the last corner Rally cursed. May let out a quiet wail of despair upon seeing the disabled elevator. The long shaft they had traveled down ended in an elevator shaft. Rally looked at the unused ladder that lined the side and gave it a tug. She looked at May, "We can't be that far down."

A weak nod came from May as she put a hand and foot on the ladder and started to climb. The two took it slow climbing one rung at a time. Even the deepest mine on Mudpie only went down a fifty meters. The two climbed at least five floors up before they moved off the ladder at a random floor. May crawled off to the side and sat down against the wall. Rally sat down beside her as the two caught their breath. May rested her head against Rally's shoulder and slowly closed her eyes.

The infected bounty hunter shook her partner, "No time for sleep now."

Letting out a weak groan May sat upright, "Any chance you got a ration pack?"

A loud clanging on the ladder let the two know they weren't alone in the mine. Rally stood and turned the corner. She moved along the wall as she drew her weapon. She weighed her options; a gap in the armor just above the breastplate or the eyes. Her adrenaline started to rise as the thought of combat drove her.

As her body temperature rose the hunter considered the half naked woman. She was clearly preparing for a fight even in her exhausted state. The alien relaxed and laughed as it looked at the small hand gun. He knew his equipment would protect him from the little device. An inhuman voice hissed out, "Silly human I am not here for you or the child."

Rally eyed the predator. He wouldn't be the first non-human bounty she had taken down. However, if the predator was talking it wasn't hunting, "Your friends in that gun ship had a different opinion."

"Pathetic slaves hunt weak prey." The predator turned ignoring the women, "Dying humans will not bring me any honor."

She seriously considered taking the shot at the eyes. Normally she could easily make that shot at this close distance but bandaged hands and an exhausted body threw all guarantees out the window. She slid the handgun into the holster.

The hunter eased along the wall then into an unlit corridor. Rally glanced over at May as she slowly eased herself up off of the floor. The smaller blond joked, "Well thats one less worry for now." May let out wet hacking cough.

Rally hurried over to her and put May's arm over her shoulder, "Come on." The half naked bounty hunter looked at the ladder and then along the wall. A glint of two steel tracks in the distance caught her eye. Rally eyed the tracks for a moment then looked around for any description as to where they might lead.

Her flash light lingered on a sign labeled, To Processing One.

She looked up and down the track in both directions and found luck was smiling on her. The carts sitting at the end of an empty shaft by all rights should have been scrapped or sold. However, dura-steel carts weighed a lot and every kilo cost money to ship off world. She checked the linkage on the lead cart. She released it from the train and pressed it forward. To her surprise the near frictionless axel moved forward easily. She pushed it forward the edge of the incline and set the brake. Rally gathered up May and put her in the large container bin.

Cold heavy rain splashed across Rally's face as she let the container slide down the incline and away from the mine. She shivered as the air started to pick up. She unbundled the poncho and let their few supplies roll around in the wet bottom of the cart. The thin plastic barely covered the two women. They cuddled together trying to conserve heat and stay dry under the plastic sheet. Rally kept a firm hand on the brake controller keeping not letting the cart go much faster than a quick run. The cold night sky revealed little. The rain and low hanging clouds obscured any light from town.

As the two descended from the ancient mountain the rain only seemed to intensify. Rally prayed that the bean counters hadn't decided that the track was worth salvaging but stopped half way up the mountain. She peered forward through the miserable weather trying to see anything ahead. All she got for her efforts was a face full of cold water. She ducked down behind the side of the cart peeking out only occasionally to make sure they weren't going to hit something.

Half an hour into their ride Rally looked down at May the girl's lips were nearly blue from the cold. Rally's hand went down to shake the girl away but she was interrupted by a jolt. Her head swiveled around as a set of brakes triggered by the weight of the cart clamped down on the wheels.

The rain fell away as the cart ground to a stop in the old processing facility. The cart tipped to the side and the two women fell onto an old conveyor belt. Rally looked around as she gathered her bearings. Some how getting to a medic became a secondary concern as she shivered in the cold. She needed to warm up in a bad way. Her light swept across the dark room. Mostly trash littered the area but a few containers looked promising.

As she came out of the container with an armful of scrap wood from packing crates and some dry cardboard her eyes caught an undershirt on the floor. Curiously she wandered over and picked it up. She caught sight of a pair of pants. In The distance and picked them up as well. She wondered where the clothing had come from as she gathered up a shirt and jacket but wasn't about to turn her nose up at a bit of luck even if it meant there was somebody wandering around naked. Well more naked than she was.

Rally gently arranged some bits of cardboard, some of the wood and a fuse from May's flash bang. Well she hoped it was a flash bang fuse. While she didn't have the encyclopedic knowledge of explosives and chemistry May possessed she knew enough to take apart a grenade. She pulled the pin out of the timer and hid behind one of the steel boxes. She didn't half to wait long as a loud bang signaled the fuse was working.

She hurried out of her hiding spot and quickly fed more boxes and wood into the slowly growing fire in the bottom of the drum. With a smile she pulled May's unconscious form close to the barrel. The growing fire slowly drove the cold water from her skin as she sat there. Her thoughts drifted as she soaked in the warmth. She wondered just how long she was in that cave unconscious. She knew that she had a bug in her and so did May. Dark thoughts crept in as she considered the odds. The in the first five hours the anti-parasite injection was almost a sure thing but after that it was a crap shoot. The damn bugs would develop their own immune system and after eight hours the effectiveness dropped to nil. She knew she had to be carrying a queen in her. Bug just didn't take this long to develop and she had been in that mine for a long time. She pushed the thoughts of odds and survival out of her head. She laughed to her self and wondered if she'd ever seen Bandit or Misty again.

Mr. I Don't Get Out of Bed for Less Than Forty Thousand Credits would probably call her an amateur and a weekend runner. She could almost see the smirk on the large man. She shook her head; while it would be nice to have the over grown oaf here he wasn't.

Misty was sure to give her an earful. Rally could hear it now, "Why do you work for that underfunded rent-a-cop. You have a better ship in your garage. Just how stupid are you."

She considered Becky for a moment and let out a laugh. The girl would probably charge her for a ride to the medics. She tossed another board on the fire and checked May. The color had returned to her lips and her breathing was steady now. She wrapped the poncho around her self and stood up.

"Let's go human," Nanami said.

"I thought you said that our war-form had stealth capabilities as regards infrared viewing equipment," Kodachi noted. "Given the hostiles around, shouldn't we be trying to avoid attention as much as possible."

"And we are," Nanami said. "All we've got right now are Hunters, and they're not going to bother a pair of unarmed human females, especially when one is pregnant. And then all we have to worry about is some security guy trying to force us back to the space port to evacuate."

"I see, stealth by belonging," Kodachi noted with a hum. "Very intelligent. Now, I believe we should start with restaurants in the area."

"Right," Nanami said. "She had to get hungry after...ermm..."

"After you stuck your tail where it wasn't needed or asked for," Kodachi noted playfully. "And are you sure there is just Celes, there's this...echo."

"Just Celes," Nanami said shortly. "No other unwitting converts out there."

Shayla Shayla sneezed.

"Then let's secure the Beagle with that wonderful AI voice and be on our way," Kodachi noted.

Slipping past the guards Roy had left on their ship was relatively easy, at least for Kodachi, and that just left getting out of the spaceport. A normal human would have had trouble, Kodachi and Nanami, however simply moved toward one of the higher walls, and leaped their way up.

Then the town was open to them.

"Careful," Kodachi noted. "I remember these creatures like to take high places. Surely tactics have been taken against that event that could trip us up."

"Which creatures, the Hunters or the bugs?" Nanami asked.

"Take your pick," Kodachi said with a shrug.

Loa trudged through the empty streets. What had started out as a brisk run slowed down to a quick walk as the rain sapped heat and energy out of his body. The brightly lit but empty streets slowly filled with the sense of wrongness again. The rumble of gun fire filled the air not too far away. He dove for a wall and cover. As it became apparent that the he was not being shot at he quickly moved along the wall towards the sounds.

He looked around the corner and down the street and quickly recognized the hissing sounds of the bugs. The lead truck had been over turned and was now on fire. The combination of xenomorph blood and the volatile fuel mixture used on Mudpie caught the transport on fire. He watched as the bugs quickly swarmed and over ran the small convoy. The entire fight was probably over inside a minute. The xenomorphs killed the weakest of the group and implanted spawn in the last survivors.

As the bugs finished with their grisly work they vanished back to the roof tops and sewer lines. Loa checked his corners then made a quick sprint to the closest truck. He opened the door of the truck and stuck his head in. His hand reached in and grabbled a rifle off the nearest body. He checked the action and let a live round slide into the breach. With the programming to find a basic weapon fulfilled Loa moved to check for a med kit then tend to any survivors.

He went to each vehicle in turn pulling out a survivor or two. By the time he reached the second car Mae Huges was coughing and a slow trickle of blood leaked from his mouth. Loa pulled the infected officer from the car and helped him into the large truck at the end of the convoy. With mechanical precision he administered the risky anti-parasite injection to each of the survivors. The hard statistics showed that even with the injection the parasite would die but so would the host as acidic blood would destroy both heart and lung tissue one the worm sufficiently decayed. However, now that the survivors were tended to at the best of his ability, the synthetic warrior was conflicted. Rudimentary survival instincts conflicted with higher level code to protect his owner. Knowing his previous owner to be dead he did the only thing he could to help the men in his truck. He looked at Huges and mechanically stated, "Orders sir?"

Huges shook his head at the absurdity of the situation and coughed out, "Get us to the hospital."

The truck rumbled to life and moved forward. Xenomorph and Hunter observed the truck leave but paid it little attention. The bugs operated on the instinct that moving spawn were spreading spawn. While the hunter only had passing intrest in a convoy that obviously contained inferior human prey.

Huges looked over the synthetic recognizing it for exactly what it was and asked, "Who sent you?"

Loa shook his head, "I was not sent I simply survived where my previous owner did not."

The wounded security officer nodded at the synthetic's response. While he fully intended to rescue his pregnant wife and child from the hospital it seemed he was the one that need rescuing now. As the beaten transport rumbled up to the hospital a the security guards quickly came out with medics.

A man quickly asked, "Sir what happened?"

Huges coughed out, "Bugs swarmed us."

Quiet gasps came from the few security guards. A medic came up with a gurney pushing the man aside, "How many wounded."

A cynical reply came from the crowd, "No evac for us now."

Loa mechanically sounded off, "Four infected with xenomorph parasites. All infections have been treated with Xeo-beta-04. All infections are less than one hour old."

The medic waved an arm and signaled four with his fingers. Huges coughed out, "Synthetic, establish a secure perimeter and wait for evacuation."

Loa nodded as he checked his rifle, "I will do what I can."

The medics quickly unloaded the truck and moved the four infected men into the hospital. Loa looked at the four junior security personnel and assessed that he was in command.

"Watch it! Step clear! Step clear! All right! Get moving on the next one!"

Officer Vato Falman motioned vigorously at the men who had been standing in the way of the big portable storage container as it rolled out of the food center behind a donkey engine. After it passed, the men ran inside as another container rolled up to be filled.

"Move it! Get this stuff rolling to the spaceport! We haven't got all day!"

He tried to keep his tone calm, authoritative, and commanding; the Security volunteers and the warehouse workers he'd dragooned along the way needed to be kept busy, or else they might start panicking. And they had to get things done fast; what with the Code Bravo-Green, who knew how much time they had? Already, he was nervously watching the shadows around the food market and shopping center for alien shapes that didn't belong.

 _Stop it! You don't want the people to see you nervous! Get them moving!_

As much for his own benefit as the volunteers, he got back to the business of loading up as much food and fuel from the Company store and the rented farmers' market stall-lockers. Already a convoy was moving in quick and orderly fashion to the spaceport where the supplies would go into the transshipment spaces, only instead of being shuttled upstairs for the big cycler starships to pick up, the stuff would feed the colony populace through the anticipated siege, until help arrived...if they arrived.

 _Think positive! Think positive! We're going to make it!_

One of the trailers passed him, and Falman took a moment to gaze in both amazement and admiration at the couple stevedoring the cargo flatbed out. Ever since he'd gotten here and roused the two, the two store managers, a married couple, had quickly and efficiently gotten everything in order with a minimum of fuss and little need of input from himself. The woman had been angry at first, but she seemed to channel that anger into directing her workers with the energy of a drill sergeant. Her husband, a hulking silent giant of a man, was just as efficient at the loading of moving out of the acquired supplies. Falman though the man alone could out-lift and outpace a load-lifter exo, the way he slung sides of beef and sacks of foodstuffs into the wheeled lug-bins, and probably could push the loaded flatbeds all the way to the spaceport by himself.

Satisfied that the market foodstuffs were emptying out and well on their way, Vato turned his attention to where he knew from reviewing the municipal records, the market stored bottled fuels, power cells, and hydrogen fuel cells. Every bit helped.

Izumi Curtis finished seeing off another truckload of hastily loaded food and equipment, made sure her crew and their families were loaded up with them, and then, and only then, climbed into the hauler beside her husband Sig as they pulled out. Only then, did she allow herself the painful luxury of worry.

When the police had shown up on her doorstep, she'd almost given them a piece of her mind about her two missing girls, but she'd heard the all-points bulletin, and knew that there were other things to worry about first. But now, as the dark streets passed by, she fretted and worried.

Celes Victoria and Winry Rockbell, the two orphans that had found their way into the same residential building over the market that Izumi and Sig lived in. Both missing without a trace.

Izumi and Sig had come to this world to get away from the pain and troubles in the more developed section of the human universe they'd started out from. Their troubles with the law, her miscarriage, the damnable verdict in its aftermath that she could never again try to have a child, the general dissatisfaction with corporate politics, and the desire for peace and quiet had brought them to lowly Mudpie and the steady work of resident greengrocers. She'd taken a shine to the two ragamuffins who'd been left without family, mothered the two as much as she could, given them discipline and order in their lives, found them part-time jobs in the market, put up with Celes' sulking brooding and infatuation with heavy firepower, and with Winry's motor-oil greased projects being dragged into the residence. Izumi had tried to provide the right mix of parental disapproval when they did something dumb, and apparent obliviousness when they did something willful and rebellious, like joyridding over the mudflats in that beat-up speeder Winry had kludged up.

Now they were missing. And now THIS was happening. Bugs and Hunters disrupting the peace and quiet. Martial law practically declared, everybody moving out to fort up, and as managers of the Company store and supply depot for the civilian colonists, she couldn't go out looking for them!

Sig sensed his wife's discomfiture and rested his large hand on her shoulder, trying to convey with his strong touch what the taciturn man could not with his words. Izumi covered his hand with her own, and smiled weakly at her husband, but the ache still didn't go away.

Bugs and Hunters. It was too much of a coincidence. Izumi really hoped the two young women has just fallen off the streets on some youthful misadventure and were even now headed for the space port, and not dead or trapped somewhere.

Because if they were okay, when she saw them again she was going to bend every law in the colony to formally adopt them, so she could ground them for life for making her worry!

In an abandoned warehouse on the edge of town and in a small cabin aboard a parked spacecraft at the 'port, two cocoons seemed to shiver for a moment.

And if and when she got her hands on anybody ELSE who might be responsible for the disappearance of 'her' girls, Izumi thought, THEY were getting more than a stern talking to from her!

Kodachi had been assisting Nanami in the fine art of roof-leap-strolling when an unexpected sneezing fit caught them in mid-leap and almost sent them sprawling in a crashlanding.

Nanami, already mentally lashing herself for not identifying and taking her earlier Bug-warning anxiety more seriously, groaned inwardly at the new feeling of dread as the two Hybrids picked themselves up off the roof

 _Oh great, who's going to be after us NOW?!_

Yep, if they survived this, Nanami was demanding some serious loving time with the stud for all the trouble they'd been attracting. She deserved it.

"We need more time to properly shut down the ionization separation beds! Otherwi-"

Officer Jean Havoc pulled his firearm. "I'm not out here carrying this for shits and giggles, man! A Code Bravo-Green means IMMEDIATE compliance with evacuation to a defensible position! Not a day from issuance, not an hour! NOW! We DON'T have time for this! Shut it down and move your men to the spaceport!"

"But we'll lose the whole refinement batch! The Company will-"

"The Company will survive losing the damn batch! You might NOT if you drag your asses any longer! Or didn't you hear? Bugs LOVE making their nests in places like this!"

THAT got the refinery nightshift manager and anybody else who heard Havoc move with greater speed. Within minutes, the refinery was rumbling to a halt, even as safety valves hissed off smoke and steam from processes that were going into emergency shutdown. There was then a frenzied exodus to the buses that had accompanied Havoc's two armored cars as they evacuated the mineral processing plants.

Nobody wanted to be Bug-chow.

The first sheets of rain were beginning to hammer in as the air cushion transports fled back over the evaporation ponds towards the lights of the spaceport.

The Blooded Hult'ah who had previously at the refinery, cursed again as he saw the biotag on the other Unblooded go out. The veteran took a moment to pull up the Hunt-memory on the deceased youngster.

The Unblooded, wounded in an encounter with one of the _Pyode Amedha_ warden patrols, had sought to avenge his injuries by luring the _ooman_ into a trap with his own blood trail. Indeed, he had succeeded in getting into position to strike the apparent leader who'd led the chase afterwards, when the Unblooded had been felled, apparently from behind.

It didn't seem like another of the _ooman_ automated traps. No, what little the point of view showed, the Unblooded had been cleverly ambushed. A well-laid and executed trap to slay the trapper. While the first youngster's death had been a case of stupidity, this second loss to the Soft Meat showed somebody had some talent.

Both angered and intrigued, the Blooded picked up his pace, leaping across the rooftops, ignoring another knot of _ooman_ vehicles and personnel clustered around a tall antennaed structure. He had a pursuit to chase down.

"Shit, Alex, the system's been GUTTED!" Kain Fury looked up from the electronics cabinets that should have held the heart of the CommCenter's tachyon-tunneler FTL comm array, but which now showed only empty slots and dangling wires.

Alex Armstrong looked at his colleague

"You can't fix it?"

"Not without the missing parts! If it was anything else in the peripherals, I could kludge up something, but the absolutely irreplaceable parts are the ones that are gone! Give me those back, and yeah, I can fix this, but without them, we may as well set this stuff on fire for and use the smoke to send smoke-signals for all the good it will do us!"

The hulking mustached, and gleam-pated Security officer turned and loomed over the handful of technicians who were still in the building when the patrol had burst in.

"I don't suppose you'd know where the parts Mister Fury is referring to might be found?" Alex Armstrong asked very politely, but with an edge in his voice.

Looking at the huge man, the angry-looking man next to him, and the body of heavily-armed men stationed around the room and incidentally the CommCenter technicians, the unlucky shift manager was shaking in his shoes.

"No, no sir! Mister Creedy just came in with some of the other techs, waving a work order, and told us to pull a full shutdown, and then had us pull everything! Then he left with the parts, said something about doing some testing with them, and told us to do a full rewire teardown on everything else! He's supposed to be over at Company lab shop doing a test on the stuff! Honest!"

Fury looked at his handheld and then at Armstrong, shaking his head.

"Nobody's over at the labs, and Creedy isn't returning his calls. Same for the rest of his senior staff, all three of them! Jorg hasn't seen them at all!"

"Rats."

"Yeah, rats. Rats deserting."

"Sure there's nothing we can do here?"

"Nothing...Anything this place can still do, we can do through the tower at the spaceport, without having to try putting everything back together." The look the Security tech expert shot the corporate CommCenter geek was pure disgust.

"So we're out of here. You and your people are coming with us to the spaceport! We're pulling out of here!"

"Ah, we're not in any trouble, are we?"

"No more than the rest of us all are!"

That wasn't very reassuring at all.

The truth Rally'd suspected was confirmed when the next pack of bugs let her kill five of the pack while just ignoring her and rushing on past. Bugs didn't usually let common hosts get away with stuff like that. It was counterproductive to the hive. The only way she could get away with it was if she'd be replacing much more than she killed.

She was definitely carrying a queen.

Still who was she to complain, it gave her more of a chance to get to town and being able to do something about it. Without that little bonus of more time and license to kill as many bugs as wanted, she'd never have reached the little ATV at the edge of the mine.

Of course the thing had to give out just short of town.

Just had to.

"This sucks," Rally cursed, kicking the ATV as she carried May into the old abandoned building they'd come to on the edge.

She checked carefully around the corners for any signs of a bug or two, this being their kind of place, but for the moment the building seemed strangely clear.

Letting May down for a moment, upon confirming that the place was clear, she moved to the other side of the warehouse and peeked out. Celes and Winry's speeder was still where it had been abandoned, a hundred yards out from the building or so.

"Thank the gods for slow ass towers," Rally said before glancing up toward the roaring sky. "Of course, this isn't the best hover weather..."

She felt a brief pain in her chest and worried that her time was up, but it subsided again. Either just a false pang or the anti-parasite bug was killing it.

Both meant a coming painful death for Rally at this point. If it was big enough to cause pain when it moved, then it was big enough to spew acid over her innards if it died.

She moved back toward May and sat down to take a breath and plan her next move.

Which was when she looked up and saw the coccoon pressed against an upper corner of the building.

"The hell?" Rally shouted.

"What...what?" May asked, waking up briefly and wincing as she looked around.

"That!" Rally said, pointing up.

May looked to where Rally was pointing and blinked. It didn't look like a bug-prisoner coccoon, especially where there were no eggs around.

"What the hell is that?"

And the it began to move...

Nanami followed behind Kodachi as the two moved through the rain. It was all she could do not to shift into hybrid form as they ran across the slick roof tops. Her hands kept slipping back to the pistols she had hidden under her poncho. As they ran Nanami irritably asked, "Just where are we going?"

"It stands to reason that young Celes was hungry before her transformation and Ms. Winry mentioned she frequently indulged at a local all-you-can-eat diner." Kodachi moved quickly through the rain. She too not felt the ever present feeling that the bugs were not far away, "We're headed there now."

The two paused as they heard gunfire in the distance. Sporadic shots went up from stubborn hold outs or the various caravans moving civilians to the shelter.

Nanami rolled her eyes. It was terrible logic but it was the only idea they had.

Rally walked up to the giant cocoon attached to wall of the abandoned building. Her hand tentatively reached out and touched the warm sticky shell. As her fingers lingered along the surface a sharp pain lanced through her chest. She quietly made a decision to her self. Moving over to May's semiconscious body Rally pulled off her belt and retrieved a detonator from her pocket. Another sharp pain shot through her chest and she knew she had to hurry. Rally dragged May behind an old damaged cargo container. The delirious girl let out a few nonsensical babbling before slipping unconscious again.

The half naked bounty hunter returned to the wall the chrysalis was attached to. With a mixture of horror and fascination the thing started to unfold in front of her. Rally hastily stuck the detonator in the end of the demolition cord belt. Her flash light barely illuminated the area she could almost see something move inside the sack as it the contents started to pour onto the floor. Rally took a deep breath and pulled the igniter out of the detonator fuse. With a grim determination she noted she had two minutes to live.

Celes started to thrash around in her self made prison. Something nearby was wrong, very wrong. She could feel something nearby that demanded her attention. Deep down she knew she was not safe any longer. As her brain waves speed up she slipped out of her shared dream with Winry and into the waking world. For a moment she felt like she was under water.

The thick skin of the cocoon opened up and Celes fell to the floor. She gasped for air as she fell onto something soft. She felt two arms wrap around her holding her. Celes mumbled out, "Gedit off of me Winry..."

Something fell out of the thing and onto Rally. The room went dark as the thick slime covered her flash light. Rally blinked as her vision was taken from her and wondered what the hell was going on. Two very human hands pushed the weakened gunsmith away. Rally cried out as the pressure increased on her chest.

Celes hands went up to her face wiping the nutrient rich gunk away from her eyes. She looked over at Rally who let out a cry of pain. The blond looked at the length of demolition cord as she heard the lit fuse, "Rally whats going on?"

Rally looked at the very human form as she withered in pain on the floor. She recognized the voice but in the dark the form just didn't match up, "Celes that you?"

The newly transformed hybrid remained mostly concealed under a thick membrane of slime. Celes paused for a second, "Yea its me, whats going on."

Rally panicked, "Get behind something..."

She shook her head, "Whats going on?"

"Demo-cord about to blow." The infected woman quickly pointed out.

Celes looked at the length of demolition cord and promptly snapped it up. Misinterpreting Rally's intent she ripped out the detonator fuse and threw it into the back of the warehouse. Confusion saturated Celes troughs, why was her older sister, mentor, bad influence trying to blow her self up?

Another pained cry came from the infected pilot. Celes hovered over her in worry quickly asking, "Whats wrong?"

In between jolts of pain Rally whimpered out, "Face hugger got me, it's about to get out."

As human nouns connected with genetic instinct Celes slowly put it together. She could feel a solution at the back of her mind, her tail. Slippery memories and instinct tried to take hold in her mind. Anxiety filled her body as she reached for her tail bone. Her hands moved along the base of her spine pulling the new appendage in front of her face.

Nanami and Kodachi stood in the parking lot of the rib joint. Nanami looked around nervously just waiting for an ambush. Kodachi on the other hand seemed to scour every inch of the facility looking for any sign of their way ward convert. Inspiration reared its head in a hybrid fashion. Celes return to consciousness show them the way like a map. The two made their way toward the girl as quickly as possible.

As the surreal situation played out for Celes two figures watched from the door way. Nanami moved to go in and help the girl but Kodachi held up her back. Nanami turned to Kodachi only to have a hand placed over her mouth. Kodachi whispered, "Wait."

Rally could only watch in fear as Celes examined what her mind decided was a knife. The whole situation made no sense what happened to Celes why was she out here why did she have a knife.

The vague memory of being stung by Nanami floated across Celes' thoughts. The tip of her tail slowly split along the metalic edge and a clear venom leaked from the opening as a small sac formed at the tip of her tail just under the blade. With an instinctual urge she thrust the tip into Rally's abs.

Rally cried out as the hybrid stinger sunk into her abdomen. The larval queen reacted just as violently. An undiluted scream came out of Rally's mouth as the queen forced its way through her soft sternum. Celes fell back in surprise as the shirking larva burst out of Rally's chest and skittered across the room. The blond hybrid's attention quickly returned to her friend and mentor. The chest burster didn't matter right now. Celes cried out as her friend started bleeding on the floor. Her hands quickly went to the wound covering it up in a vain attempt to stop the bleeding, "Rally, Rally don't die."

Rally's heart beat slowed at the genetic cocktail infiltrated her body. As she slowly bled on the cold dirt her blood took on a thicker and darker color. Celes sobbed over her friend as she felt her heart beat slow. The wound knitted its self shut underneath Celes hand as Rally lost consciousness. A poncho was draped over Celes and a calm voice said, "She'll be alright. She's just unconscious. You helped her in time."

Celes turned to see a Nanami standing there. Why was this so difficult. Here was the monster that made her a monster but if she wasn't a monster she couldn't have saved Rally. The detonator roared to life with a loud bang across the room. Celes' form slipped from her hybrid state to her very spiky and excessively strong war form. Her arm curled back and lashed out at the biologist, "Damn it!"

A loud snap signaled the breaking of Nanami's jaw as the blow sent her to the floor. The older hybrid did not get up she just waited for the younger girl to make the next move. Kodachi however had other concerns on her mind, "Ms. Victoria do you know this girl?"

Celes cursed, "Ah damn it, the Minnie is here too."

Kodachi looked over the apparently young teen, "It is odd that a young child is here."

A loud growl came from the floor where Rally lay. The hybrids all turned to look as the dusky skinned woman quickly shifted into her hybrid then war form. She sat up shaking her head but her eyes focused on something else entirely. Rally stood up and inhuman eyes surveyed the room. Without a word she broke into a run.

The three females watched her with a bit of curiosity right up until she ran out of sight. Nanami blinked she thought Ranma and Kodachi were fast but this girl seemed to be made for speed at the exclusion of every thing else. Celes broke into a run following her mentor into the pouring rain. The apprentice sniper barely kept up while she shouted, "Rally wait!"

Nanami paused as she felt the blood lust rolling off the newest member of their link. Where Celes had been angry and confused, Rally was out for blood. A killing intent chilled Nanami and prevented her and Kodachi from following as Rally swiftly moved off to kill something.

Celes barely kept track of her mentor as sprinted back into town. Even though it was the middle of the night Celes saw the feral grin that crossed Rally's face as she found her target. The worm had grown to a two and a half meters in length now it's torso slowly filling out even as it move through the streets. Rally leapt off of building hurling her self at her target. Hardened hybrid claws cut into the still soft flesh of the juvenile xenomorph queen. The hybrid and alien wrestled in the water covered street for several moments. Rally's claws and teeth quickly made short work of her would be dispatcher.

The blond hybrid carefully approached her long time role model, "Um... Rally."

Rally's bloodlust moved from a low boil to a light simmer as she squeezed the life out of the alien. Her attention slowly returned to the concious world. She closed her mouth taking one last bite of the xenomoph fleash and stood up. Celes could clearly see the changes in her friend. Even in the low light she could make out the tail and see the inhuman shape of her feet and hands.

Rally nervously swallowed the bit of queen in her mouth while still holding onto the carcass, "Hey Celes, whats up?"

The two stood in silence for a moment before Rally exclaimed, "Oh no, May."

Kodachi looked at the girl in her lap and shook her head, "There is something off with her."

Nanami pondered the feeling she was getting from the girl and agreed, "She might have taken an anti parasite injection."

"The few texts our former host had on the ship indicated those injections targeted specific D.N.A. sequences." Kodachi picked the girl up, "We should get her to a proper medical facility soon. She doesn't have much longer."

Rally quickly spoke up, "We should be going then."

The two older Hybrids were rearing to go, the still unconscious May wrapped in a poncho and cradled by Kodachi, when they sensed the two new additions arrive out of the driving rain, both in the Hybrid 'middle' form. Rally, even more naked than she was before, but apparently in a curious state between shock and calm, radiated far less bloodlust and a certain satisfaction, part of it attributed to the alien carcass she still held in one hand, apparently unconscious of the fact. Poncho-wearing Celes on the other hand, still smoldered with some anger, but more puzzlement, as she approached the two newcomers, but her glare resumed when she saw Nanami.

Nanami ignored Celes' glare to focus on Rally. "Come on, we have to get your friend to the hospital!"

THAT jolted Rally out of her daze. Dropping her kill, Rally rushed to her friend's side. "Oh jeez. She's right; we gotta get her to help,NOW!"

The three were heading out into the downpour, anticipating a run towards the hospital, Rally guiding them, when Celes suddenly called out to them; "Where the hell do you think you're going?!"

Rally looked gobsmacked. "Celes! The hospital! May needs help!"

"You're RUNNING there?! With a perfectly good RIDE on hand?!" Celes gestured to where a shape was just barely visible in the driving rain. Her acute vision focused in on it. "Ah PITS! I left the top down! Never mind, it will run! And it's a lot faster than running!"

Rally stared at the beat-up landspeeder. "You gotta be kidding me, Celes! You can't drive that thing in this weather!"

As if on cue, a hellacious thunderstorm-born gust of wind howled over them, lashing the Hybrids with stinging rain. Any stronger, and they'd be fighting to keep their balance.

"The hell I can't! Me and Winry drove that thing along the damn beach across WAVES! And we out-raced a tornado on the plains! I can handle a drive downtown! And I'll get us there a lot sooner!"

"You've gotta be kidding me!"

"No! Besides, if I left it out here, Winry would kill me!" She shot a glare at Kodachi. "That is, if nothing ELSE happens to her!"

Kodachi ignored the implied rebuff as she stared at the decrepit-looking vehicle under discussion. It didn't exactly inspire a lot of confidence at this distance.

"You came in that thing? You're braver than I thought!"

Rally threw up her hands; she could sense the younger girl's determination and confidence in her own skill. She also had to admit Celes had more than a little talent with ground effect vehicles.

"All right, all right! May's dead if we can't get there in time, and I somehow feel like I already died and already came back, so what's a flaming crash and broken necks compared to what we've already gone through! Let's go!"

Despite sopping wet seats(which prompted Kodachi's offer to 'help bail'), the rusty and battered little speeder started up without complaint, the fuel cell-powered fans purring with unexpected confidence and power, lifting the vehicle up off the ground. A quick removal of some panels behind the two seats revealed a cramped little rumble seat into which Kodachi and Nanami had squeezed themselves, Rally (now wearing Kodachi's jacket) taking the front passenger seat, May in her arms, and Celes taking the driver's position(of course). They'd managed to erect the fabric top, giving them some cover from the elements.

Celes was as good as her word, steering the rickety vehicle through the dark and battering rain with a surety that was almost supernatural, or just intensely focused, and maybe assisted a bit by new senses and enhanced abilities.

Still, it was some ways to the hospital, and the urgency of their mission, the hammering of the weather, and the awareness of the peril they were all in, made time CRAWL.

As she clutched her friend to her in an effort to keep her warm, Rally, trying to take her mind off what she couldn't affect, turned her head and looked at the two strangers that now seemed somehow familiar.

"So what's your story?"

Nanami, still fingering her jaw( _Damn, but that girl can HIT! I bet I'm going to still be feeling this tomorrow!_ ), answered. "The short form? I'm Nanami Jinnai. A coupla weeks ago I was just a normal biochemist doing lab work on killing Bugs for a big Corp, only they were into a lot of real dirty bioengineering things and I got trapped by them. Then the whole business went cockup and the whole bug-farm exploded in their faces. I was dying, but got turned along with her,(she gestured at Kodachi) and Ranma...he's a guy...into uber-mutants with a bit of just about every alien species Mankind's encountered, mixed up in us. We're practically a whole new species and we're on the run from the Corp, and looking to blow their dirty little secrets. We came here, and while waiting for word from some friends, I accidentally made your friend here one of us(Celes , still focused on driving, 'hmphed' at the reference), while Kodachi turned her friend Winry to save the kid's life, sort of like what Celes did for you. We kinda regenerate real fast if he hadn't noticed and we're damn tough to kill. Welcome to the pack, by the way. I'll fill you in on the rest of the fun if we get the time."

"So you're...and me..we're some sort of super-mutants?"

Kodachi looked over at that. "I prefer to think of myself as a person, not a mutant or anything demeaning."

Rally blinked at the gentle remand in that statement. "And what were you several weeks ago. Miss Nanami said she was a normal girl then. What about you?"

"I was dead. But then I came alive."

There was quiet in the small space under the canopy of the speeder, even with the rain slashing on the vehicle.

Celes broke the uncomfortable silence. "You know, I think I know a shortcut to the center of town! Winry and me, we figured we could take the drainage canals; use them like roadways!"

With that, she suddenly rolled the steering wheel, almost rolling the ducted fan GEV over as it veered off the road and began to pick up speed.

"Hold on, we gotta clear some fence!"

Nanami and Kodachi caught a glimpse of chicken-wire fencing looming up ahead, before the car lurched into the air with a scream of fans and hum of repulsers. Then there was a lurch of freefall that had the Hybrids curling their tails around them to brace themselves(and new as she was to having a tail, Rally also instinctively found herself doing the same). A glimpse of sloped concrete, and the hovercar sideslipped sideways as he caught itself before smashing to bits, then leveled out over turbulent rushing water.

Then the hovercraft was zipping down a canyon of concrete, headlights picking up white water, a rooster tail of spray geysering behind them.

"WEEEEEHHHAAAHHHHH!" Celes crowed as she flew her ride down the canal. Screw the speed limit! This was an emergency!

The Hunter hiding under the bridge like a toll-troll, waited; for human or HardMeat, it didn't matter; the bridge was a perfect ambush site for either to come, and if the HardMeat came here to ambush humans, all the better. The Hunter would have a target-rich killing field.

That was when the young male saw the approaching lights...not down the road, but down the waterway.

 _What the-?_

Then, before the Hunter could react, the vehicle suddenly sped by underneath. The Yautja caught a glimpse of a long body, mismatched red-and-tan body panels, howling engines, and hints of a small heat source inside-

*SPPPLOOOSSHHHH*

The kicked-up spray caught the Hunter full-face as he was leveling his harpoon gun. By the time he could wipe off the cold water from his facemask, the _ooman_ vehicle was well out of range and receding rapidly in the distance.

The Hunter cursed and raged, his young male blood hot at the insult of the drive-by soaking. It wasn't the wetness that had him raging; it was the sheer ARROGANCE of the smack in the face! He'd been caught off-guard, and humiliated for it!

Oh, those _ooman_ were SO getting it! The driver's head and the front of their infernal vehicle would decorate his trophy wall!

With a snarl the Predator bounded out from under the bridge, in pursuit of the hovercar.

"Did you see something back there?"

"What is behind me, no longer concerns me!"

"...rrrigghhttttt."

Rally stared at the small form of her partner as she cradled her. Her first instinct was to have one of the other women do what Celes did to her. However, there was a lingering suspicion that her system couldn't handle the anti-parasite cocktail and the hybrid mutagen in her weakened state. Despite Celes reckless driving and the day's events her mind slipped away from the situation at hand. Mental and physical exhaustion started to become unbearable and she started to lose consciousness.

"Rally, you listening Rally?" Celes looked over at the passenger seat.

She shifted in her seat, "What is it?"

Kodachi spoke up, "You need to concentrate on your human form if we are going to go into the hospital."

Rally blinked several times not quite comprehending what they were implying. Kodachi quickly turned on a light and held it up to her face, "Take a deep breath and think human."

The bright light blinded Rally's hybrid eyes for a moment It really hadn't dawned on the bounty hunter that she had changed. At least consciously she did not recognize that Celes or her self were any different until now. A slender hand reached out and grabbed her wrist. Kodachi shined the light on Rally's hand. Rally visually inspected hard black claws and glossy skin. Her introspection was interrupted by a quiet moan came from the bundle in her lap.

Celes hand darted across the car slapping her, "You're Irene Rally Vincent, you're one hundred and seventy centimeters tall you have dusky skin. You have an athletic build, only weigh fifty-one kilos and have blue eyes. I know you dyed your hair blond once and it looked horrible."

The exhausted bounty hunter took a deep breath and concentrated on her self image. Her face slowly lost its chitinous features as it shifted from a glossy ebony to a soft brown. Claws became slender fingers with thick callouses. The only part of the transition she could really feel was her tail sliding up into herself because she sank into the seat a bit. Rally softly joked, "I look human?"

Celes nodded and knocked the speeder back into gear.

In the back seat Nanami steeled herself as she felt the background aggression of the drones start to grow. The hospital sat away from the other buildings and was easily the tallest building in the intimidate area at a whopping seven stories. As the hover car moved closer to the well lit building she found her self torn between fleeing and hunting.

Maes' eyes eased open as the doctor eased him out of the medical stasis tube and into the near by bed. He took a breath and winced in pain. A long bandage ran just under his rib cage. The older woman smiled at him, "Welcome back Officer Hughes."

He shook his head trying to order his thoughts. The last thing he remembered was that synthetic pulling from the car, "What happened?"

She looked over the small tablet and smiled, "Your convoy was overrun by a swarm of xenomorphs. We had to put you into stasis to remove the larva and the anti-parasite cocktail."

"Daddy?" a small voice asked as the door to the room opened.

Maes' expression quickly changed from concealed pain to outward happiness, "Elicia honey have you come to see your daddy?"

Gracia picked up her small daughter and smiled. The small girl practically beamed upon seeing her father's face, "Mommy said you were at work daddy; why are you in bed?"

Maes joked back to his daughter, "Daddy just worked a little bit too much."

"Give daddy a kiss. He needs to go back to work." Gracia leaned in and gave her husband a kiss and whispered, "I'm glad your alright."

The two eased their way out of the room. Loa held the door open for them. Loa walked into the room and shut the door.

Maes' eyed the synthetic as his exaggerated smile faded, "I owe you one."

The large man nodded and reported, "All civilians are on the first and second floor. All entrances have been barricaded except for the main doors."

Maes eyed his synthetic rescuer, "So what do I call you?"

Loa shifted on his feet, "My previous owner addressed me as Loa."

Maes nodded, "So just what is a Chimera B doing on Mudpie?"

The synthetic saw no need to deceive or even attempt at misdirection, "My previous owner was paid to intercept a payroll and rare metals transfer today."

"I see." A weak chuckle came from the injured man, "Seems the old man was right. Help me up."

Loa shook his head, "The doctors indicated you needed at least forty-eight hours of rest. You have only been recovering for two."

"We don't have the luxury of rest." Maes stated bluntly. He pulled out his I.V. and removed the vital signs monitor, "We have bugs and hunters to worry about."

Loa nodded and replied, "Statistically the hunters will avoid known hospitals and schools. Our resources are better spent distributed defending first and second floor access points. If evacuation is not eminent we should relocate to the third and fourth floors to minimize our access points."

The injured security officer nodded, "Any other pearls of wisdom you wish to dispense?"

"Place any V.I.P's in the isolation ward or medical stasis." Loa stated bluntly as the two exited the room.

The radio Loa had taken off Roy started squawking out, "Contact, basement access four."

The sound of rifle fire echoed through the hospital followed quickly by the cries of panic and the wails of children.

"Medic to hallway four." The radio called out again.

Roy and Loa rushed down the hall. As they went towards the damage a bed on wheels went the other way. The lead doctor shouted, "Make a hole!"

The two moved against the wall as a gurney with a wounded man rolled past. Acid burns peppered the injured man's clothing and face. Roy took one look at the injuries before hurried down the hall as best he could, "So much for moving everyone to the second and third floor."

Another wave of sound filled the room, "Code Eight in the emergency bay."

Maes looked at Loa, "How throughly did you check for survivors?"

"There were only four bio signs near your location." Loa paused and considered his memory, "Unless one was obscured by the fire from the lead vehicle."

Maes found him self torn between evaluating the damage and finding out this new twist, "Go check on that hall way. I'll find out whats going on. Last thing we need is a larva behind our perimeter."

The injured officer made it to the emergency room just in time to see the gurney disappear behind a curtain and slide into an emergency room. His head spun around looking for an orderly or a nurse to tell him what was going on. Instead his eyes settled on a very naked from the jacket down Rally. He took stock of her long toned legs in detail. Her slouched position in the waiting room chair left nothing to the imagination. He shook his head and forced his gaze decidedly lower. Her boots were filthy and torn yet he didn't see any blood stains. His observations were cut off by a blow to the back of his head.

Celes testily remanded him, "She's had a tough day. She's not here to put on a free show."

Maes rubbed the back of his head and turned, "Sorry nurse... Celes?"

The scrubs clad woman glared at him. Her wet hair was still caked with something. Once he moved past the obvious he took in the details. Gone was the sixteen year old teen and in her place was a woman with model grade looks who hat to be at least in her twenties. She huffed, "I haven't had a much better day either."

Celes pulled off Rally's boots and then slid a pair of scrubs over her legs. She didn't dare zip the jacket shut. Celes knew moving Rally's gun while she was asleep would cause trouble. Instead she draped a sheet over her friend.

Maes shook his head and thought to him self, " _I'm a married man she's only sixteen._ " He swallowed and asked, "So that was May?"

The young sniper nodded, "Yea, she had a larva stuck in her." She eyed the older officer for a moment slowly taking in his features. His square glasses and scruffy face gave him a... Her train of thought abruptly stopped. She blushed as she realized she was sizing up the older man. Awkwardly she said, "Seems you lost your shirt too."

He nodded, "Bad day all around, can you fight?"

She laughed not sure what was going on, "I left my rifle in my other birthday suit."

Nanami came up to Celes. She looked at the unconscious Rally now sporting pastel pink scrubs and a light blue sheet. Some how she just knew Rally's wardrobe didn't include pastel pink.

Officer Roy Mustang moved along behind the man who'd identified himself as 'Ranma Saotome', as they made their way along the access way between hangar pits. He'd been highly suspicious of the man when they'd met at the hatchway of the ship identified as the _-Beagle-_ ; something about those people didn't ring true to Mustang's Inner Cop, and the whole 'bodyguard' alibi seemed contrived. Mustang figured the character as a smuggler or pirate.

However, having seen the man in action taking out that Predator that had been laying in wait for him, Mustang was revising his opinion of Ranma. He still didn't think the man was a bodyguard, but the way he'd moved suggested serious training and something else. Corporate special ops maybe, possibly an augment, the whole 'bodyguard' story a cover for something more paramilitary. Definitely someone or something on the edge of the law, and quite dangerous, but Mustang wasn't getting a vibe that he was in any personal danger from the man...at least as long as the ship he came off of couldn't lift.

Roy touch-tapped his communicator and the channel to the following APC.

"Suzy, Bay Seven. Talk to me."

The spaceport in this section was a series of interspaced service hangars and individual landing pads, enclosed in walled embrasures of ferrocrete slab blast walls, meant to give both privacy for small craft owners and provide protection in case of fires or leaks, and linked by a common service way. The walls could be ripped down to open them up to the larger open landing field, but only with heavy equipment. Roy and his team had been going from bay to bay, checking on the occupants(and, in the case of empty bays, FOR occupants). Most of the bays were empty; aside from the one where the _-Beagle-_ was docked, they'd thus far only run across a service vehicle. Suzy was checking against the spaceport registry files as they went along.

Suzy's voice came over his headset; _# "Next slip's a corporate-register. It's reading as occupied, but the mikes picked up some serious gunfire just a few minutes ago." #_

"Confirmed. Hang back and be ready for trouble. Could be Bugs or another Predator."

"Gotcha." Hyatt's voice sounded positively giddy at the prospect of shooting something else up.

Roy and Ranma ran up to the vehicle door into the landing pad/pit, weapons ready. Ranma tried the door controls, having seen Roy do the same at previous empty slips.

"It's locked."

"Allow me."

Mustang waved his master key wand over the blast door lock. With a cheery beep, the doors instantly slid open.

That's when they walked in on a VERY active scene. In the middle of the raised blast walls, a sleek-looking vessel squatted on its landing jacks, a ventral hatch open, as several heavily armed men were rapidly loading boxes from several cargo lorries pulled up in front of the ship into its cargo hold. Off to one side of the tarmac pad, a patch of chewed up ferrocrete splashed with fading-glow ichor told the two intruders what the earlier gunfire had been. Clearly a Predator had been here...past tense being the imperative here.

Mustang also recognized several of the men; Kessler Corps' Field CEO's inner circle of guards. Supposedly they all worked for Security, but these men had always been understood to answer to CEO Looten Plunder and not Chief Robert Cho. If Saotome was a definite maybe for walking the wrong side of the law, then all of these men were definite definitions of criminals hiding behind a corporate mandate, and Mustang had been waiting for an excuse to take even one of them down.

Well, here he had the perfect opportunity, given Cho's declaration of Plunder's lawlessness, and Mustang couldn't enjoy it with the current situation.

Still, he was an officer of the law, and he had a duty to perform.

Vandal looked over and spat a curse, as two human figures walked in on them. His boss, Mister Bleak, had gone aboard, hauling the remains of the late McCormick aboard, they were just about finished loading up the CEO's ship, had just shot a Predator off their backs, and were almost ready to go, and another fucking interruption walks in on them!

And this interruption was now loudly hailing them, gun in hand, and ordering them to stop what they were doing!

"Under Colonial Security Emergency Code Five, you men are ordered to stand down and cease what you're doing, immediately! Failure to comply, and you'll be in violation of Colonial law!"

Vandal immediately recognized Roy Mustang; Cho's stiff-necked, white-gloved,wonderboy, a strutting stick-up-the-ass who carried himself like a Core World metro-cop. He didn't recognize the dark-haired guy in black and body armor next to the Security officer, but figured him as a weekend warrior deputy of some sort. Why the hell hadn't the smartguns already chewed those two to grue already?!

That's when he remembered; Mustang and his pet were probably carrying cookie-cutter transponders, and nobody had bothered to hack the smartguns' code defaults to ignore cop IFF codes! Shit! A chain gun that could splash a Predator and it was too dumb to kill inconvenient cops!

He immediately toggled his headset; _"Vandal here; we have two cops down here demanding we stand down! Orders?"_

Mister Bleak's response was immediate. The man must have been already monitoring the situation outside the ship.

 _#"Vandal. Get rid of them! Do whatever it takes! Just get rid of those redshirts!"#_

" _Yes, sir! Consider it done!"_ The mercenary turned around, bringing up his weapon to bear.

Ranma's enhanced hearing picked up on the supposedly silent communication, and he was already ready when the man's body language became even MORE belligerent.

Thus, just as Vandal was about to put them into action, he found one of the 'redshirts' in question a LOT closer than expected. In fact, the man was so close they were almost touching...Actually, it just registered, they WERE touching...Or rather the long length of razor-sharp steel in the man's hand was touching Vandal's throat, having slipped through the protection of Vandal's body armor to pink his carotid. Vandal went stiff as that registered with his sense of self-preservation.

"'Get rid of those redshirts?' 'Consider it done?' I'd reconsider those words, man."

Mustang had been surprised by Saotome's sudden action and his words, but he was quick to put two and two together, and he brought his own weapon up to bear on the other men, who'd also been in the process of bringing the weapons to target on the police officer and his apparent deputy. Either they had gotten similar communiqués or they had been watching their boss, but they were moving to take violent action.

That was when the Security APC appeared in the still open doorway, the ripgun turret atop it tracking across the scene.

Two cops the mercs could definitely take out, even if it meant losing their immediate superior. An armored vehicle, even a lightly armored one like the ones local Security had, took some killing with side arms, and with a six-barrel ripper already hot and ready, the mercs would likely lose more than a few of their number. And they didn't know who might be behind that APC.

Mustang stared down Vandal, still at the end of Saotome's blade. "Call your men off, and you don't get hurt!"

The answer came from the ship in the form of a rapid rattling of gunfire. Evidentially somebody had taken manual control of the smartguns.

The barrage of heavy-caliber rounds tore across the tarmac, then smashed into the APC. The APC, its own gun already pointing at the personnel on the ground, got off a burst that scattered the mercs around the trucks, then reoriented to fire off a sustained burst at the ship, even as the Security vehicle reversed behind cover.

Mustang dove for cover behind one of the trucks, firing off a burst from his own sidearm at a mercenary, as he saw Saotome follow him, dragging Vandal with him and incidentally smashing the man bodily against the truck side, stunning the mercenary officer even with his helmet on. Above them heavy rounds wailed and shrieked through the air in an unholy chorus.

Then Mustang noted another tone in the shrieking. Risking it, the officer snapped off another burst to keep down any unfriendly heads, then glanced around his cover.

A gust of hot air met his face, as he saw through the glare of tarmac lights and running lights the hatch of the ship quickly closing. He also saw in that glimpse several of the hunkered-down mercenaries break cover and run for the ship, trying desperately to jump aboard before the hatch closed. One made it, another did not, the smartly closing hatch snapping off the man from the shoulders up. A cloud of dust, debris, and spray rose from around the ship, and the truck Roy had taken cover behind began to lurch and sway.

Ranma's prisoner, still pinned against the side of the truck, suddenly realized what was happening.

"NO! NO, what are you DOING!? YOU're WHAT!? You CAN'T! WHAT?! YOU FUCKER! YOU FUCKING BASTARD! YOU CAN'T DO THIS TO ME-" Vandal began screaming increasingly louder over the rising howl.

The ship rose from the pad, thrusters screaming, its nose rising and turning.

"YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME!" Vandal was practically begging, extolling the heavens for rescue.

Roy's eyes widened as he saw several blisters on the sides of the otherwise sleek corporate craft open and revolve. He began backing up, trying to remember how far the cover of the blast walls behind him was...

"Saotome! RUN!"

Light flared from the flanks and engine bells of the ascending ship.

Roy turned and bolted, distantly aware as he ran that Hyatt was still firing at the ship, a long drawn-out tongue of fire spitting from the APC from behind the blast wall. He could see his own flickering shadow racing ahead of him as he felt the air go hot around him.

Then intense heat racing up his back.

-And something hit him HARD, lifting him off the ground, and carrying him through the air, even as the world went totally white around him, and then blessedly cool and dark.

Mustang came to the chill of cold water raining on his face, to hear a distant, dopplering roar fading into the background.

Painfully, he rolled over onto his back. His eyes still seemed to work, well enough that even with the rain pelting down in his face, he could see the fire-tongued spark of the executive transport ascending into the cloud layer, the drive flare briefly visible through the clouds, adding to the flashes of lightning. He was lying outside the landing pad pit on the causeway, and he could see flames dancing along the top of the blast wall.

After a quick self-assessment to make sure everything was still attached, Roy pulled himself to his feet, and with a better perspective, looked around. Debris littered the roadway in front of the pit doors; parts of vehicles, packing crates, equipment. He saw a rounded shape partially concealed behind some larger debris, and suddenly remembered those last few moments on the landing pad. He hadn't been alone.

"Saotome! You okay?"

The figure roused itself, gave a grunting confirmation.

Roy started over to the man, certain he was injured, but a hand waved him off, and a gravely voice stopped him.

"I'm okay! Just check on the girls, all right? Still gotta job to do!"

Saotome was already staggering to his knees under the debris that had apparently sheltered him, or punched him outside the landing pit, just as he'd pushed Roy out of the way. What Roy could see, the man's armor and clothing were scorched and ripped up, but other wise he looked intact. He was right though; his people took precedence; despite Mister Plunder's betrayal(and he had no doubt the man was aboard that ship), they still had to secure the spaceport.

Even as he turned and saw the battered-looking APC near them, a last thought stuck in Roy's mind, that he dismissed as he turned his attention to his officers.

Maybe it was a trick of the light, but had Saotome's skin looked somehow DARKER?

Ranma groaned and hissed, but was careful to keep his injured side facing away from the police officer, and his tail concealed under the debris. Already the burns and slashes were healing rapidly, but they still hurt like hell and it didn't make it easier. As soon as he could, he was going to shift back to human form, before the policeman's compassion got the better of him and he came back to check on his dragooned deputy.

Ranma chanced a look through the blown-open hatch, seeing the flames within, the overturned trucks, and other debris. A smell of acrid chemicals, burning insulation, and cooking flesh assailed his nose.

He felt a momentary pang of regret; in his haste to get out and push the policeman to safety, he'd left that other guy behind. The last he'd seen of him, the man had broken cover and was racing under the rising ship, alternately pleading to be picked up and threatening to open fire if they didn't, the weapon in his hand coming up to bear on the escape craft. Given the hell that had been visited on the landing pad when that rocketship had lit its jets, Ranma had no illusions about the man's fate after that.

Well, the goon HAD been about to shoot him and the policeman, and Ranma had been ready to run the guy through. So, no great loss there.

The pain in his side and shoulder was bearable now, and Ranma felt he could exert himself a little. With a grunt he withdrew his tail and his skin assumed normal human color tones. He'd have to heal the rest in human form.

He stood up and began assessing the damage to his possessions. Clothing torn and ripped, shoulder panel ripped off the body armor, but the rifle he had yet to use still clung to him on its strap, and his sword still where he'd hastily scabbarded it while running.

Good; he'd hate to have lost the thing. It felt like it had some good history to it.

While the others brought May and Rally into the hospital for rest and treatment, Kodachi lingered behind, examining the entrance they had made into the building's basement.

Nanami had pointed out the storm shutters and Kodachi was trying to work the controls to seal the building behind them, but there was apparently a few shorts, some of the windows weren't closing.

That meant manually shutting them down. Something that would normally require an independent power source.

Of course, Kodachi was an independent power source. Just because she hadn't tinkered with that as much as Ranma had, didn't mean she didn't at least have the first trick they'd learned with it.

Opening and closing powered doors.

The air around her crackled briefly as she came to each window and started it closing, and she was on her third when the smell and feel of the air around her changed.

Finishing up, she leaped to the middle of the room and watched cautiously as she picked out three slick black shapes held frozen on the outskirts of the room near the windows.

Kodachi's eyes flicked from one to the other as she pulled out the long steel whip she'd acquired, cracking it demonstratively. With a brief thought, she adapted the door opening trick and funnelled a momentary burst of bio-energy into the steel.

The crackling energy ignited the nearly invisible dust fragments hanging in the air producing a short lash of fire along the length of the swirling whip.

The three scouting bugs scuttled backwards, nervousness clear in their normally fearless expressions. The world for them was clearly defined in terms of us and them. And in rare cases, another hive of us could be an enemy, but they were still under the category of us.

But these hybrids weren't exactly a them or an us. They were a not-us and not-them. They didn't know exactly how to categorize them and thus, they feared them.

And three runner scouts weren't nearly as many as they wanted in dealing with one of these. And the smells said this not-us wasn't the only not-us here.

Their indecision was obvious to Kodachi who took advantage of it as she took one step forward and lashed out at one with her whip, slashing into the thing's skin, a leg falling away.

A burst of bio-energy seared the monster's skin and also evaporate the acid blood before it could even touch the whip, much less eat it away.

The other two bugs hesitated and then surged forward themselves, trying to flank Kodachi as her whip was extended and thus supposedly out of use.

A flick of Kodachi's wrist wrapped around the leg of a table placed down here in storage and then whipped another movement whipped it about, sending the steel furniture slamming into the bug on her left as the whip released the desk and swung around to slash through the body of the bug on her right.

Still, the female hybrid hadn't taken more than a step forward or back of her original position.

The three-limbed bug, turned and hobbled away, trying to push through the window it had come in through, desperate to bring these images back to the hive.

A length of energized steel wrapped around its feet and started to pull back, as Kodachi attempted to prevent its escape. Her aim was interrupted, however, as the bug she'd slammed with the desk leaped out onto her pushing aside.

The injured bug shrieked as it lost the bottom end of its foot as Kodachi reflexively pulled at the wrong angle, and it wiggled to freedom out of the reach of the not-us.

As for the bug that had tackled Kodachi, its fragments scattered over the floor, acid blood ruining most of the furniture and assorted old boxes and papers that had been deemed momentarily useless but potentially necessary in some unknown future.

Kodachi stepped forward, breathing heavily as her skin shifted from hyrbid tones to human ones. Swiftly she was back to sealing the shorted windows. She finished quickly enough and turned to head back into the hospital rolling up her whip as she did so.

Kodachi frowned as she finished rolling her whip in and found it shorter by a foot, she'd been to busy to protect it in that last slice through her target.

Not to mention the fact tha ther clothes were spotted with acid burns now due the one that she had killed on top of her.

It was quite annoying, after all, she'd just barely purchased this dress.

"Kodachi," she muttered to herself. "You don't have to ask to know that this is not exactly the sort of 'exercise' suggested for expectant mothers."

In her pre-occupation, Kodachi failed to notice another figure standing in a slight alcove that the air pushed by without dipping deeply in.

Mae Hughes stepped out well after she'd disappeared down the hallway and looked back to the scattered remains of the two bugs the woman had very easily dispatched.

The security man hadn't had a clear view of what she did to the last one, as she'd fallen past the wall that blocked much of his line of sight, but he'd seen the violent results and how many small pieces that particular bug had been left in.

"What the hell is going on here?" he wondered. "Another synthetic?" No she mentioned being pregnant.

That could be one of the old bio-genetic models, but he didn't think anybody still made those. There was an experimental fertility surrogate about a hundred years ago, but they weren't combat models, mostly they'd been companion models.

So what was this woman.

He looked into the back room, checking to make sure that everything was shut down and locked up before following the woman up the hallway and moving into the other groups of people holed up in the hospital.

"What the," a nurse said as he passed by Rally lying unconscious on the stretcher they'd laid her on. "What is with these things?"

"Something wrong," Mae asked the nurse.

"I don't like the color on this woman," the nurse said. "There are some severe discolorations in the eyes, lips and nails and her skin color is a bit off. I've been trying to put her on an IV, but they're defective or something."

Mae watched as the nurse tried again to push a surete into Rally's arm. A few seconds after the IV was in the arm, it was swinging free and away.

"That's the third one," the nurse said, frustrated.

"I'll take care of her," Hughes said, waving the woman ahead to deal with other concerns. "She just needs a bit of rest, I'm thinking. You're getting stressed, the blinders are coming on, break off and get a breath, help the other injuries."

"Right, right," the nurse taking a deep breath as she nodded and walked off.

As she did so, Hughes quietly took out a small pocket knife and sliced a shallow cut along Rally's arm, causing the woman to stir in her exhaustion.

"What's up?" she asked dazedly, blinking awake. "Did something cut me?"

"Nothing, Vincent," Hughes said with a smile as the wound he'd given healed closed. "Go back to sleep."

"Stupid dreams," the woman muttered before arranging herself comfortably and slipping back to sleep.

Hughes looked down at his pocket knife and watched the blade slowly eat away where Rally's blood touched it.

"What the hell is going on here?" he wondered to himself.

The unbloodied hunter had reached his goal in the hive. A final cluster of guardian drones were all that remained in between him and the queen. The quadruped zenomorphs provided little challenge despite their numbers. As he eased forward his visor did not indicate anything unusual. He stuck close to the wall and lined up his first shot.

She had been patient and waited. The oldest and most primitive of her drones provided fodder for the interloper. She could feel his naked agression and blood lust but steeled her drones.

As the hunter steadied his shot on the closest bug the grinding of stone filled his ears followed by the snapping of timber. He lurched forward to avoid the falling rocks but the mistake was made. The way was sealed.

Two bipedal bugs dropped down from the ceiling with painful ease their talons cut into his arms.

He struggled furiously as the queen moved forward. However the prone position on the floor provided him with little leverage against the massive creatures. Thick layers of silicate goo already coated his arms as the queen moved forward.

A triumphant hiss came from the bug queen as she moved forward. The larval queen had long since left her range of perception and instinct told her it was time to seed yet another hive. Black mandibles extended and the prey was injected with sedative. As the males struggles died down her inner mouth extended into his depositing a new queen into the chest of the unbloodied male. Once her grisly work was done the drones dragged the unconscious incubator off to the side.

The way was cleared and a new set of bipedal drones began their search for new prey.

"That's the last of the berths," one of the security staff said as he came up to Roy. "We've got three autocannon nests at key points."

"Arranged like I requested?" Roy asked.

"Yeah, but I don't see why," the security cop said. "Aren't we wasting firepower to set them up like that. It's like we're wasting one third of them."

"Yes, well the extra third isn't for the targets coming in through the front," Roy noted with a smirk. "By the way, you know about a year ago when we brought in the new paint-scheme for the space port walkways?"

"Yeah," the security man said. "What about it?"

"Make sure no one steps in the red cones," Roy said.

The guard thought about it and realized suddenly that the old painted cones Roy had ordered done when he'd arrived corresponded to the firing archs of the hidden inward facing autoguns.

Wondering why his boss wanted an autocannon firing back into the compound at each nest, the security man returned to his post.

"Won't that be an obvious trap?" Ranma asked. "Big frigging red cone warning saying: yes, please circumvent the nest so the hidden backwards gun can cut you in half. Look where it's going to shoot."

"Yes, well yautja and xenomorphs don't see the same spectrum we do," Roy said. "I doubt they'd know the paint is even there unless we painted it right it front of them."

"Just how long have you been planning this?" Ranma asked.

Roy smirked.

"Let's go visit your girls, shall we?" Roy said.

"Oh, I'm sure their fine," Ranma said hesitantly, not wanting Roy to go poking around the ship and finding the two women gone.

Worse, finding Winry coccooned in one of the crew quarters.

Roy looked at Ranma with an arched eyebrow for a moment and chose to ignore the rather poor lie for now.

"No, I'm sure they're worried about your safety," he continued gesturing for the martial artist to follow him.

The distinctive scream of a xenomorph saved the hybrid from another poor attempt to redirct Roy's attention and both were up to where one of the soldiers was shooting the still twitching drone.

"Save your ammo," Roy shouted.

A burst of lightning cut over the scene revealing a small swarm of the xenomorphs creeping in towards the newly secured spaceport and trying to reach the flow of civilians into one of the gates perhaps half a mile further away from the position.

"Okay," Roy shouted. "Get their attention people!"

And that's when a torrent of pulse rifle ripped into the monsters in front of the soldiers. The fire certainly attracted the swarm however as a few dozen aliens swarmed toward the closer prey.

Ranma tried to add to the fire, but grumbled irritably as the gun in his hands refused to fire. After a few seconds, he remembered and found the safety, but even then he didn't particularly fire accurately.

First the weapon kicked badly, which he got used to quickly and held tighter in his hands, but even then, autofire weapons weren't known for their pinpoint accuracy, and half of his first clip plinked harmlessly into open air.

When the gun was finally empty, much sooner than anybody else's but not soon enough for Ranma, the remaining aliens were trying to climb up the walls.

One made it up through the gap provided by Ranma's inexperienced attempts at gunfire, only to freeze as it smelled the not-us at the top of the wall and being punched well out into the air, landing some fifty feet away.

The next two bugs found themselves likewise treated as a roundhouse kick snapped the neck of one around in sharp, sickening crack just as the next was hit with a snap kick further empowered by the momentum of the previous roundhouse.

The third alien flew up and across over the dwindling swarm to smack to a water tower on a nearby roof. The impact dented the water tower and splattered acid all across the roof of the building across the way, in moments, the whole structure was falling forward down into the rear of the alien swarm, crushing three more under it's weight and the sharp points of its acid eaten structure.

Roy at another part of the wall, blinked as he saw the devastation and looked about for the distinctive shimmer of a hunter. Expecting that the xenomorph sent into the water tower had just been hit by a net gun.

Then came the first sound of a human casualty as one of the aliens grabbed a security officer and leaped off meaning to drag her out toward a hive.

No one could miss the scene here as a figure leaped from the wall and landed in front of the alien and its captive. The aliens in the area scattered like cockroaches in the light as the figure landed, which wasn't quick enough to save the one with the prisoner as it was toppled on its side.

The human security officer was extricated safely and sent rolling as the figure seemed to kick the head off of the drone.

There were only about fifteen drones at this point, and they stopped focusing on the walls. Instead, they were focused on the easy target on the ground with them, trying to grab that and escape around the not-us that had just landed amongst them.

The first that leaped at the human, found itself speared on something long and sharp before being hurled away from the human, who was slowly trying to gain his wits back as something whirled around him. Where this figure watched, the drones fell back and others at his back tried to jump in.

But they kept seeming to think they could catch the figure by surprise, as they jumped while he responded to another of their swarm.

"What the hell is going on down there?" Roy demanded. "Get me a light on the situation, I'm not waiting for a lightning flash."

The light was switched on, revealing their position to any Hunter looking, but strobed down toward the melee just as a tremendous blast of lightning seemed to erupt out from the ground, ripping through everything on the field.

The searchlight passed right over the figure shielding the human solider once in a blur before it swivled back to show Ranma Saotome standing there.

As he seemed to be catching his breath, the dark-haired man's arm snapped up and caught a Yautja spear in a dead stop, inches from his face without any sign of fear or worry.

And then he returned it in the direction it came.

The sound of a pained Yautja scream from the weapon's unseen final stop indicated that Ranma had hit what he'd been aiming at.

Not wasting any time, the young man scooped up the disoriented human and bounded up to the wall in a series of leaps before depositing the man into safety.

Roy pushed his way through the crowd of staring soldiers to where Ranma had landed and frowned at the "bodyguard" before turning to the soldiers.

"Back to watch!" he called out. "There were several thousand head of cattle in the ranches near here, and that wasn't even a hundred."

Chastized, the security staff returned to their positions, staring back over their shoulders at Ranma.

"What the hell are you?" Roy asked.

Nanami cursed as the faint smell of hybrid blood wafted past her nose. Her head spun around trying to locate the source. After a quarter turn she noticed the bandaged man Celes was flirting with earlier. What was his name she wondered, "Howe, Huey, Huge?"

She cast her mental senses out. Kodachi was alive and doing well. The clone gave off a brief spike of aggression before going back to her same old aloof self with a growing mixture of maternal warmth. Her mind shifted to the new blond in their little group. Mentally the girl was well guarded. Random spikes of lust, irritation, depression and concern floated up to the link. She switched her concentration to the exhausted Rally. The woman was a bit of an enigma why was she in that warehouse, what was she doing with that kid? The questions would have to wait. It seemed like she was just asleep. Ranma lingered on the edges of her senses she could tell he was wounded but healing. As soon as she probed she felt him clamp down on the link shutting her out. She grumbled to herself, "Macho idiot."

Maes turned as he realized the one of the women that came in with Rally and May was following him, "Can I help you."

The biologist paused and wondered to her self, "How did she keep getting into these situations." Part of her screamed out, "Kill him, he knows." While another part of her mind almost giggled, "Sting him, give Celes a playmate." She shook her head and tried to think along more human lines. Her voice came back, "We finished with the shutters."

Maes looked over Nanami for a second and considered, "Alright, evac could take a while. Go'n find Loa for an assignment."

She nodded, "Alright." Nanami and deliberately walked past him. He smelled like Rally. Why was she bleeding. Her eyes glanced around the emergency room. Where was she. Nanami casually moved towards where Rally was.

The biologist spotted the still wet chair and frowned. She really hoped Rally didn't go all berserker again and wander off to kill some bugs. She amended her thoughts, the killing bugs part wouldn't be so bad but hunting her down would be troublesome. Nanami worked her way up to the second level and stole a glance at Rally. She looked alright. Even if she could faintly smell hybrid blood.

Hughes watched the other girl that brought in the local gunsmith for a moment then decided it was time to get some answers. It didn't take him long to find his best chance at an answer. Well he scratched that idea. If Izumi was Celes' surrogate mother, Rally and May were the relatives you learned every thing your parents never you to know from. Except in addition to bad habits they taught explosives, sniping, gun-smithing and piloting, all the skills a growing mercenary-gun-runner would need.

He quickly moved through the hospital to the service doors where the blond was stationed. He nodded to the two other guards, "Take a coffee break or catch five."

The short man handed him his rifle and radio as the two walked off. Maes sat down across from her behind a concrete pylon. Celes caught an unusual scent on the air and cocked her head as she looked at him, "Something wrong?"

"That should be my line." Huges laughed quipped as he watched the door, "Where were you when the training drill was sounded?"

Celes glared at him, "I ate something that didn't agree with me last night."

"Ah so that's why you came to the hospital." Huges nodded, "If you're not feeling good..."

She cut him off, "I came to the hospital because May has a worm stuck in her chest."

He backed off and offered up some good news, "Doc's finished up with May a little while ago she and Rally are up on two."

His eyes stole every glance he could trying to evaluate her expression. The corner of her lips shifted ever so slightly into a frown, "Good to hear. You should be up there resting with her."

"Right and let the civies waste the ammo." He joked, "Gracia would kick my ass if I was asleep on the job."

She shook her head, "You can barely stand much less fight."

He gave her a roguish grin, "True but I'd rather not die in bed."

Celes rolled her eyes, "Well go co-ordinate the defenses or something."

"I know Rally's taught you better than that." He let his expression darken, "You don't really think we can hold out for long. My convoy was over run by more bugs than I could count. How you got here is a mystery to me."

An uneasy silence filled the time as the two sat at the perimeter waiting for something. Maes recognized the stalemate in the conversation. She wasn't going to talk and prying would only alienate her. He handed off the rifle and radio once the pair came back.

"Yawwwn!" Rally arched her back like a cat as the dawn light dimly illuminated her room through the metal shutters in her suite window. The rain beat against the shutters with a steady rhythm still. Had she been paying attention one would have noted her spine flexed more than the average feline.

A tired voice joked, "So the sleeping princess awakes."

Rally scratched her boob then her hand when to her dirty and tangled hair, "How long was I out?"

Maes didn't move from his seat in the corner, "Three hours give or take. What do you remember."

"Getting shot down is on the highlight reel. Being wet and cold is also there." She looked over at her long time friend, "Ah hell. I need a shower."

"Yes you do." Maes casually mentioned, "Xenomorph silicate is quite difficult to clean up."

She pulled the sheet around her self as she stood up, "Feh, always the nosy one."

"Old habits die hard." He shifted in his chair, "People don't just walk out of a hive."

She casually walked over to the bathroom, "I crawled."

With an unconscious effort at seduction she dropped the sheet while wiggling out of the oversized scrubs covering her up just steps from the private bathroom. The sheet hit the ground just as she closed the door behind herself.

The wounded officer twitched a bit as she let him catch a small glance of her now perfectly formed runner's ass. His thoughts went from lust to denial, "Vincent was not nearly that hot before."

Rally stood in front of the mirror she peeled off Nanami's jacket and tossed it to the floor. Her hand moved for the snap holding her shoulder holster on only to find it caked over in silicate. She tore the tattered holster away. The filthy collection of canvas and plastic was set in the sink as she pulled out her trusty CZ-750. She checked the action and removed the clip. She knew it worked all too well. Flashes of her taking out a small group of drones in the last leg of her journey flashed through her mind. She slid the half full magazine back into the weapon. The tapped the barrel of the gun against her temple then shook her head Rally thought, "I can kill myself when I die."

Sliding the weapon back into the holster Rally took stock of her body. Every thing seemed to be working correctly. Hell the chest burster didn't even leave a scar. She stuck a finger in her mouth and looked at her teeth. Her teeth had a bit more pointed look but they slowly became more human as she concentrated on the detail. Rally let her mouth close and let out a sigh. Aside from being hungry she didn't feel any strange urges or an overwhelming desire to kill all humans or any other compulsions. She back tracked her thoughts. She did just size up Huges. Which was a bit odd him being ten years older and married. She reached up to her hair and extracted a glob of something and decided that a shower was definitely in order. She entered the shower and started to work her hair free of the filth tangled into it.

Once she deemed herself sufficiently clean Rally exited the shower clad in a towel. She spotted a fresh pair of scrubs and put them on followed by her tattered holster. Maes looked at her and continued his interrogation, "So while you were crawling out of the hive you didn't happen to stop by a country doc did you."

Rally turned around and marched over to Maes, "Look you inner sphere prick back off! I had to carry us out of hell yet again and it wasn't fun."

He came back just as aggressive, "In case you haven't noticed May isn't the only one that had her chest cracked open tonight."

The door opened and Celes stuck her head in, "Rally, you're awake."

She backed off. Maes sat up in his chair as she moved away. Rally looked at Celes, "Yea, Kitten, I'm alive."

Unsure of her self Celes offered up an apology, "I am...um... sorry."

Rally blinked several times then backed off of Maes, "Sorry for what?"

"Uh well... the whole well... um you know." Celes edged around the details. "It's just..."

For her own part Rally only remembered a few bits and pieces from the last few hours leading up to their arrival at the hospital, "Celes everything after the ATV ride is a bit of a blur. So what ever it was consider it forgotten." She looked over both of them for a moment and sighed, "Seeing as how you're both unarmed I take it were pretty well fucked here?"

Celes nodded, "The buggers backed off a few hours ago. They started acting real weird."

"Great." Rally sarcastically replied. She frowned, "The BTR-20 still on the roof?"

Maes nodded, "It should be but the wind still hasn't died down."

Rally bit her lip. If it had been a military grade and maintained BTR-20 Yastreb she wouldn't have been worried. The scaled down civilian model would probably get tossed around like a rag doll in this storm, "Yea, not a bright idea."

"What are you planning Rally?" Celes asked a unsure about the answer she was going to get.

"Come on, if nothing else we can take a damn ambulance." Walking out of the room Rally moved with determination.

The former errand girl and police officer followed. Rally moved quickly covering the distance in the small hospital as quickly as possible Celes asked as they arrived at the ambulance bay, "Just where are we going?"

Rally rolled her eyes, "The only place on Mudpie that actually a decent armory aside from the port."

Maes just shook his head, "Even if you could get to your stock pile you'd still have to get back."

Rally climbed into the back and started removing anything she could to make room, "Assuming Old Man Cho risks another convoy it's a fight either way. The bugs won't just back off and the hunters are still out there." Once the gurney and anything else taking up space was removed she asked, "So are you going to be useful or make two girls do all the heavy lifting?"

Kodachi sat down on a bench and watched the action going on around her. Rally was unconscious and exhausted, that little girl she'd been with was coming out of surgery. Nanami was being shuffled around by doctors and nurses after she'd revealed she was a biologist. Celes was on guard duty somewhere.

This left her feeling rather useless, so she'd sat down out of the way and watched, noting that she wasn't the only person doing so.

Eventually, her eyes caught on to the sight of several children about the room she was in. Just like her, most of them were sitting in an out of the way corner, but more than a few were trying to get the attention of the medical staff along with the few security men and women.

The clone's eyes widened as she recalled something she'd seen on a movie in a past life. That, combined with her growing maternal instinct drove her to action.

She stood up and walked towards of the closer children, a boy demanding the attention of a frazzled looking doctor.

"Where's my mom and dad?" the boy was asking.

"I'm sorry, Jason," the doctor said, looking down irritably. "I don't know where your parents are, can you please sit down and stay out of the way?"

Kodachi reached the scene then and bent downward toward the little boy with a comforting smile on her face.

"Is your name Jason, then?" the hybrid asked in her normal haughty tone of voice, though it was softened at the moment.

The little boy nodded at her.

"I see," she said. "How old are you?"

"Eleven," the boy said.

"Oh, a big boy then," Kodachi said.

"That's right," Jason said with a firm nod.

"Oh, maybe you can help me then," Kodachi said.

"How...how can I help?" the boy asked.

Kodachi looked up at the doctor.

"Is there a sizeable empty room safely away from the windows?" Kodachi asked.

"There's a conference room down the hall, to the right," the doctor said.

Kodachi nodded and looked back at the little boy.

"Here's how you can help," Kodachi said. "I'm going to find all the children and take them to a big room where we can sit and play and wait for all your parents to find you. Okay?"

"My parents will find us there?" Jason asked.

"If all of the children are in the same place," Kodachi said. "It'll be easy to find them."

"Okay," Jason said.

"Excellent," Kodachi said with an imperious snap. "Let's begin."

Ranma didn't know why he'd followed the police officer a ways away from the rest of his men; everything should have told him to take the opportunity to slip away from the man in the bustle to do other things, but something compelled him to stick by the other man. Maybe because by doing so, he'd draw even MORE suspicion to himself. But remaining in sight meant that he was the ready target of the man's annoying scrutiny.

Damn it, he had things to worry about too! He had the girl in the ship to worry about, he had Nanami and Kodachi to worry bout, he had the new girl he'd felt enter their link with some outrage, and then he'd felt ANOTHER ONE enter the link! That one was so totally unexpected, and came on with such pain and anger, he'd almost dropped everything, the hell with Mustang, and gone running to wherever his girls were. Fortunately that anger had subsided with a sudden burst of bloodthirsty satisfaction...and sated hunger?...But it had scared him badly. Yeah, he really wanted to see Kodachi and Nanami and what they had to say!

His own frustration had sought release in the fight just now, but even then, he'd had to fight the urge to utterly cut loose, 'morph out into his Hybrid form, or even into his all-out mode, and REALLY cut loose, but he had witnesses. And even his restrained little performance had drawn Mustang's suspicion, he could just tell.

Sure enough, once they were clear of earshot of the other officers guarding the perimeter and under the shelter of a building's eaves, Roy Mustang whirled on Ranma.

"Okay, Saotome. I want straight answers. What the HELL are you?"

Even though he'd long discredited most of the man's teachings, the ghost of Genma Saotome loomed up in Ranma's thoughts, ready with advice from Genma's Rules: _When questioned, lie!_

"I told you already. I'm a bodygua-"

Roy Mustang had his own mentor teachings; _When questioned pointblank who they are and what they're doing, suspects will lie._

"Bullshit, Saotome. That wasn't bodyguarding training out there, that was hyperactive combat against those xenos! Care to explain that?!"

Genma Saotome Rules of Dealing with Authority, Part Two: _When caught in a lie, lie again._

"I'm a very GOOD bodyguard."

Roy Mustang's Rules of Dealing with Suspects, Part Two: _When caught in a lie, suspects will try to cover their slip with another lie._

"Nice try, but I'm not buying it. What are you, really?!"

Ranma's (Posthumously) Revised Rules of Dealing with Authority: _If caught in additional lies, tell the truth, but not the whole truth, especially of the truth is preposterous and unprovable. You can't get in any MORE trouble by this point, can you?_

"Okay! Okay! I'm an escaped corporate lab rat from an experiment in raising ancient martial artists from the dead! I was DAMNED good in my last life, and I'm even better in this one! I dunno what all was done to me yet, but I'm pumped up, stronger, tougher, and faster than normal, and I'm mad as hell because everywhere I go, the universe seems to dump shit like the Bugs on me! All I want to do is protect the people who helped me out of that hell I escaped from, and if that means killing every damn Bug on this planet, and going through every damned Hunter, so be it! But I don't have a beef with the people around here, I don't hurt anybody who doesn't hurt me or mine first, and I don't have anything to do with that crap going on outside! It just happened! And I'm stuck here with the rest of you until we can all get away from it! And if that means I gotta work with you, officer, than sir, yes, sir, I'm here to kill Bugs!"

That came out a little more forcefully than he'd meant, but technically it was all true.

Roy blinked; normally he'd be angry with the man's belligerence and the absurd tale, but it DID make a certain amount of sense. Clearly Saotome was some kind of augment, and his furtiveness COULD be explained by the tale of running from a corporation. And, hadn't he seen something, just before this all exploded on them, a downloaded news piece about some anti-corporate activist group...STARS or something...hitting a corporate facility somewhere in the Arm?

He'd LOVE to sit down and properly grill this guy for more information; his instincts were telling him there was more to the story(no WAY Saotome had told him the whole truth!), but circumstances dictated otherwise, especially as he saw one of his officers...Jean Havoc, by the look of the face under the rain soaked poncho...hurrying over to him.

"That's good to hear, Saotome. It better remain that way. Because if you DO pose a danger to these people, I'll-"

"Yeah, 'make me regret ever setting foot here'! I still got a martial artist's code of honor, Officer. I protect those who can't protect themselves, sir, yes, sir!"

Mustang grunted at the last impertinence; Saotome definitely had a chip on his shoulder. Well, as long as he remained true to his word, there wasn't anything Roy could really hang him on, what with the more dire situation shaping up.

Roy turned to the officer who'd just arrived(who indeed was Havoc). The man looked winded and worried.

"Jean, what's your sitrep?"

"Evacuated the refineries as ordered, Roy, and got out just ahead of the Bugs. They're scouting all over the place! But I got the workers out, and brought some heavy equipment with me, AND all the blasting chemicals and some industrial solvents we could lay hands on quickly! Armstrong and Kain are back from the CommCenter; Kain's saying the place was a loss. Seems they pulled a suspiciously timed total tear-down of the tach-array just after word broke about the Bugs. Armstrong's spitting a hundred curses about the Company CEO-"

"Mister Plunder just absconded."

"Yeah, saw the liftoff. So, big bright middle finger of rocket exhaust to all of us! Heard he strafed the pads?"

"Minimal damage; a few buildings ripped and some tankers blown up. We could have used that fuel. But it could have been worse."

"Anyways, Kain's setting up the new command post in Traffic Control, and the Chief's already moving everybody that's left over at the compound here. Just about everybody from the market district's pulled in behind the wire and settling in the warehouses here, but we still got some residence blocs that haven't checked in yet. And Hughes' convoy to the hospital got swarmed."

Roy started at that. "Swarmed? Casualties?"

"Info's sketchy and the link was bad, Roy, but what we made out he lost most of his guys. He got implanted, but got to the hospital in time to get it cut out. He's forted up in the hospital with some reservists and a few irregulars he apparently picked up. But he sez the Bugs seem to have encircled the place; they can see them outside, thick as flies."

"That's not typical of them."

"No, it's not. Not good news at all. And with the loss of his guys, he's not sure he can make a breakout with everybody there. So, we going after him?"

Mustang winced; he could feel an oncoming question of priorities. "Not my call. We have to see about securing the position here, and I'll talk to Cho about getting up a relief force to get them out. But right now, we get the inbounds scanned and behind the wire."

Havoc looked ready to protest, but stopped his return argument short; he too could spot a bad situation. If Security went roaring off to the rescue before making sure the security perimeter was as airtight as they could make it, they might not any place to return to, even if they succeeded.

There was an uncomfortable silence, broken only by the roll of thunder, and the occasional _krak_ of burner rifles as the security troopers shot at scouting Bugs or menacing shadows.

Havoc gestured at the guy in black leaning against the wall behind Mustang. "So, who's your buddy? I don't recognize him from the Reservist lists."

The young Hunter cursed and groaned as he stumbled along awkwardly, owing to the spear jammed halfway through his shoulder. Every step he was fighting not to scream again in agony; that first one had been humiliation enough, but it had been borne of surprise at his own weapon being returned to him in such a manner.

To be struck through, perhaps mortally, with his own weapon!

But the _ooman_ he'd cast it at had been such a tempting target, such a magnificent specimen, and identified itself as worthy prey by the way it had fought the Hard Meat! None would fault him for trying for such a prize, all would admire him for bringing back the skull of such a fighter!

If he'd succeeded.

None would praise him for being speared with his own _Ki its-pa_. How the _ooman_ had reversed the throw and targeted him had shown him another proficiency of the prey and taught him a painful lesson in underestimating his prey.

Slumping painfully to dubious shelter, pain-fogged eyes looking out for the Hard Meat he knew were lurking about, the young Hunter went to his knees, fumbled out his med-box, and then tried to get a purchase on the hunting spear lodged in his body, to pull it out and cauterize the injury. It was difficult, however, as he lacked proper angle, and the haft was slicked with rain and his blood.

He was quite surprised, then, when the _Ki its-pa_ was yanked hard without his urging. Surprised enough that he let out another scream of pain.

Through his shock and agony, he looked over his shoulder to find the looming presence of a _Hiju_ Warrior, one of the seniors assigned to watch the Unblooded. The elder Yautja had just pulled the embedded spear out, and now looked at him with disdain visible even through the face mask the warrior wore.

" _What are you waiting for, -idiot-? Your mother?! Attend to your injury, or ready your excuse to Cetanu the Final Hunter how you died so pathetically!"_

The criticism bit nearly as deep as the _Ki its-pa_ had, and the younger Yautja scrambled to staunch the free-bleeding wound and apply the healing tools. While he still had consciousness, he stood a chance, but he couldn't expect much more help from a Blooded Warrior, he knew. Many _Hiju_ regarded _Kainde Amedha Chiva_ as exercises in culling the ranks of the unworthy, and would not lift a finger to assist an Unblooded. Even the help he'd just received could be termed -excessive- by some of the more conservative elders.

It would not avail him well to have wasted that act of _H'chak_.

The _Hiju_ looked on with mild disinterest as the Unblooded worked to plug his own wounds. The older Warrior looked at the youngster's weapon still in his hand; he'd arrived on the scene earlier to see the _ooman_ who'd thrown it back confront the men at the spacecraft before it had left, had seen the confrontation that had followed.

He'd seen again the blade that one wielded, in the glare of the landing pit's lights. The blade he recognized.

And he'd seen the combat with the Hard Meat. The blade had not come into play then, but then the _ooman_ apparently hadn't needed it. The male had had other skills and weapons to use, it seemed. The Warrior had never seen _oomans_ fight like so, without the guns they tended to be so fond of and reliant on; he had only witnessed such prowess in Elders, their names legend among the Yautja. Such power! Such supreme control! Such magnificent violence!

He'd also witnessed the spear attack and its consequences. The Warrior couldn't fault the Unblooded for his throw; at that age, he too would have been tempted to have a go at claiming that one's skull, if only because the male had already claimed a Yautja.

He still might; the _ooman_ had thus far proven impressive and worthy of hunting. But only after a very careful stalk to insure the prey had no more lethal surprises to spring.

And not before he had some answers from the _ooman_. Even if he had to rip them out of him.

Once the word came down to deploy the ED-290s, they'd started to be moved out on trucks to various spots around the edge of town and scattered throughout. The job was only half-finished, interrupted as it was by the storm and the enemies within it.

The xenomorphs hadn't yet been given any reason to notice the huge, metal, plaststeel and reactive polymer independent weapons, and most of the younger hunters had dismissed them as the crews delivering them had either fled or been killed. Two there were a couple of yautja looking for the rogue ED-290 that was still in unknown areas.

Of course, the elder hunter eyed them carefully, but also left them alone until they came into play.

It was no challenge to destroy a sleeping dragon after all, and the Walking Weapons were considered something of a trophy in and of themselves given their ability to see through predator camouflage, ability to sustain massive amounts of damage without failing and their overall destructive capability.

Somewhere on the spaceport, a nervous security tech watched the latest wave of evacuees get inside the walls and made the emotionally warped decision that that was everybody that was coming.

After this much time, everybody else in the town had to be dead.

Without orders from Cho, Roy or any other officer, the nervous tech sent the start-up order.

And then completed the order for martial law.

Nineteen killer robots, most alone, but with at least two small clusters where scattering had been incomplete, activated with orders to "detain" anything that moved.

 **by Tman**

"Retractors."

"Retractors."

"Clamp."

"Clamp!"

"Injector?"

"Ready."

"NOW!"

Colonial medicine required a special mindset, being out on the borders away from the miracle medicine of the coreworlds. Those who chose to practice on the frontiers could expect to see all variety of serious life-threatening injuries associated with developing the undeveloped, and encountering the unknown. Industrial accidents, environmental hazards, alien pathogens and lifeforms, all had to be faced with limited resources and creative application of medical knowledge, even with the sophisticated modular hardware that was shipped out with nearly every colony effort. Being a colonial doctor meant having a certain mindset that wasn't allowed to quail at a new unknown, or defer a case to some other specialist.

Still, the little simulation training required of colonial-certified physicians prepared them little for the horrors of digging into a living person's chest cavity to extract a life alien parasite, and kill it before it could kill both the patient and the medical team. Ceti Alpha VII General Hospital's surgical team was therefore doing remarkably well dealing with the sudden rash of cases under the circumstances.

"There's the damn thing! GET IT!"

"Go-DAMN! It's getting away! Suction! Suction! Get the slippery little bas-"

A gloved hand darted into the bloody opening, grabbing the eeling form, slippery with gore, as it tried to burrow back into its unwilling host. The small hand gripped and pinched the alien parasite with machinelike pressure, pulled the creeling monstrosity out, then another hand darted in, jabbing the creature behind the head with a needle, pumping in a shot of chemicals. The worm-like form instantly turned gray, withered, and expired in the gloved grip.

"Got it."

"Damn...Okay! Parasite removed! Close up the patient and move them to ICU! Get ready for more! We're not done here, folks!"

"Excellent work, Miss Nanami, or is it Doctor?"

Nanami Jinnai tossed the already deteriorating alien parasite into a biohazard disposal bin and turned to regard the surgeon who was looking at her with some awe and no small amount of respect.

"Doctor only of biochemistry; I'm a test tube juggler by training, I'm afraid. At best, I'm good at some paramedic work, nothing more. You scalpel dancers are the real doctors around here."

"Well, you seem to be doing quite well here. And your lab experience apparently prepared you well."

Nanami smiled at that. In endeavoring to make herself useful once her crew had arrived at the hospital, and it had become clear that they weren't going to be able to make it back immediately to the space port, she'd let slip she had some medical training.

She'd expected to be simply band-aiding incomings, but she had found herself drawn to the ER, and soon putting her other skills to work.

Fortunately, the medical staff were both too busy and too grateful to wonder why a stranger off the street had such in-depth knowledge of xenomorphs. Especially how to kill them.

Mudpie Municipal may have had both a good array of anti-parasite medications, and a lab section that WASN'T the equal of the corporate weapons works that she had at the Repository, but Nanami knew a few things she could do with the available resources. She hadn't spent her years in the Mushroom Farm in vain, and she had come up with a few ways of killing xenomorphs in the larvae that could be whipped up easily enough. Plus, she didn't have to worry about running them past some corporate lawyer to be patented under somebody else's name.

And, too, she was fast enough and tough enough to hit the little bastards before they could go berserk and start killing. Not that the medics had to know the specifics of that; they just thought the young lady was incredibly brave to handle one of mankind's worst plagues with her own hands.

"Hell, I just like to kill Bugs."

Whether she was saying that to answer his question or just speaking aloud, the doctor accepted Nanami's explanation with a tired nod. Nanami smiled back.

 _He has nice eyes_ Nanami noticed, taking note of the man's eyes behind the medical eyeshields. A firm figure too, under the surgical scrubs. Might be worth looking into later...

 _Stop it! You got a real stud who can handle what you can now dish out waiting for you back at the spaceport! Yep, once we get the people out of here, I'm fucking your brains out, Ranma! You hear me, Mister Brave-Dumb-and-Sexy?!_ Nanami mentally chanted.

 _Still, though, I can do a little window-shopping, can't I? And maybe some of the other girls might be interested..._

Nanami sighed as she assisted the nurses with closing up the last patient before making her way back to the hospital lab to see what else she could whip up. Work before play, and it was good to be doing some meaningful work with her training.

Mentally, she checked in on the other Hybrids. Far distant Ranma was still macho and frustrated, and feeling put upon, but also calm and collect in a way that told her from experience that he must have just beat the shot out of something or somethingS. She could feel Kodachi not far away, surrounding herself with people. Youngsters by the feel of it; Kodachi was radiating a combination of maternal warmth and frustrated exasperation. That fit with what she'd heard over the hospital grapevine that the other young woman had been gathering the children and Maternity Ward crew into a defensible position.

As for the newest additions to the pack? Nanami dipped her attention towards Celes and Rally, careful not to intrude too conspicuously; she could still sense the younger girl was nursing some violent feelings towards her. Now what are they up to-?

 _Ah, HELL!_

The conference room adjacent to the Maternity Ward, had become the gathering place for the various rugrats, toddlers, and loose children in the hospital. Gathering them together, even in a small hospital like Ceti Alpha VII General had been an unexpectedly difficult undertaking for Kodachi, that almost had her reaching for her metal ribbon to lasso some of the errant youngsters like an American cowboy(or cowgirl, rather), and then she had had to deal with the various age groups not mixing like they should have. There were the terrified kids, and the demanding ones, and the just plain stubborn ones. A younger, less (other) worldly Kodachi might have come to regret her decision to take charge of the children, but nobler, older, wiser Kodachi felt possessed of a noble's obligation to finish what she started, and take responsibility.

Fortunately, once word had gotten around the halls of what she was doing, she wasn't alone. Other staffers, parents, both new and expectant, and other refugees had gathered to her, grateful to be doing SOMETHING constructive, even if it had the undertones of a last stand situation.

Thus, the conference room she had taken over, and several adjacent rooms, had become the new Children's Wing, where the children were fussed over and watched.

Grateful for the help and some of the pressure taken off her, Kodachi had taken the opportunity to sit back and watch something she had little experience in; parenting.

Kodachi Kuno had been essentially raised by family servants, her biological parents drifting increasingly, for whatever reasons, into the background. Kodachi Saotome had no such pretensions of being able to decline the responsibilities of parenting. And so she watched and listened and absorbed, and asked questions of her companions. In short order she was learning the trials and tribulations of changing diapers, preparing formula, calming crying children, escorting others to the bathroom, and distracting youngsters.

It hadn't taken long before a common maternal sense had informed the various new mothers and mothers-to-be gathered that the dark-haired haughty young woman with the commanding presence and the bearing of ancient nobility out of some Terran history book was expecting; was one of them in that regard. That had led to a quick warming-to, and the scared women were gratefully setting aside their fears for the immediate future to share their thoughts and advice with Kodachi. The camaraderie of motherhood came easily after that.

Kodachi discovered something. It was nice to be accepted into a social group, and not because they feared you or your family's influence.

All the while, though, as she listened to the agonies of swollen ankles, unusual dietary cravings, three AM feedings, the virtues of music on growing young minds, the dubious nutritional value of crayons, and the achievements of respective progeny, part of Kodachi's mind was focused on listening for threats. Though not as acute as Nanami's special gifts, Kodachi could still sense the monsters circling outside, the growing darkness that put her on edge. Satisfied for the moment that the darkness wasn't coming any closer, that part of her mentally sheathed its claws and settled back, but remained ever watchful, invisible senses searching unseen pastures and hillsides for the telltale approach of predators.

More acutely, she could hear the others' thoughts. Her beloved Ranma-sama was being heroic as always, she could sense Nanami's satisfaction eliminating another Ugly Thing from the universe, the muzzy warm glow of Winry sleeping away in her cocoon, and Celes and Rally plotting something.

Whatever it was, it seemed to have something to do with eliminating more Ugly Things from their universe. Kodachi could sense Rally's gleeful anticipation of wreaking havoc, something not to different from her Ranma-sama cheerfully girding himself for a good fight. So whatever the two young Hybrids had planned, Kodachi decided it was all well and good. She would, however, keep listening in, just in case.

She turned her attention back to here immediate company and distracting a precocious little five-year-old girl by teaching her the basics of how to twirl a ribbon.

Subconsciously, she paid only passing attention to the fact that she seemed to have acquired a visible baby-bump. Perhaps she was just blending in among the other mothers and mothers to be.

One of the new mothers looked over at Kodachi.

"So, what are you hoping for? A boy or a girl?"

"As long as it has two arms, two legs, and all the right parts in the right places, I'll be happy."

"Remind me again why I'm letting you do this, taking a perfectly good vehicle out into that mess?" Hughes regarded the two girls in the ambulance bay suspiciously.

"Because we really need the extra firepower?" Rally said with the force of conviction and reason.

Okay, so the pheromones off two Hybrids who genuinely wanted something were pretty thick around that ambulance. Psionics wasn't the only way to bend heads, and Maes Hughes, married though he was, suspicious of what had really happened to his two officers as he is, was defenseless against the onslaught.

"Right. Well, it had better be worth risking your lives and perimeter security to get your guns, Rally! As well as a vehicle we may well need!"

"Oh, it will be!"

"In that case, I'm really afraid to ask what you have in your private collection that you haven't declared."

"Just make sure the doors all close behind us and nothing gets back in! See you in a few, Hughes!"

Hughes gestured to the hulking combat synthetic and the handful of security men huddled behind secondary barricades in the ambulance bay, ready to snap open the armored doors, then close them the moment the ambulance had left.

"You bring that ambulance back!" Hughes shouted as Rally started up the vehicle.

A wave through the window was all the response he got, Then the wind and rain lashed inward as the armored shutters slid up and with a roar of gas turbines, the ambulance slammed out of the garage into the dark dangerousness outside.

The ambulance went howling down the street, Rally white-knuckling the wheel as they went screeching down the 'No Parking' area in front of the hospital and down the approaches. Both Hybrids could feel the malign presences around and ahead, the gathering menace that both had bad recent memories of. Rally fumbled one handed for her pistol, Celes readied the handgun she'd managed to cajole out of Hughes for this 'mission'.

But surprisingly there was no crash, no sudden bang of something big and hungry landing on the ambulance, trying to rip it open to get at the soft meat within. Instead, the malign presences ahead paused, then parted. Rally and Celes got an impression of sleek, grotesque forms rain-slicked in the ambulance's headlights, diving aside as they drove through.

Not willing to look a gift-horse in the mouth, Rally gunned it once they reached a straight-away, putting as much distance as she could between herself and the pack behind. There would be time enough for confrontations later, when they were PROPERLY equipped.

"You know, he's right. This -is- a valuable vehicle. Why couldn't we have taken MY car?" Celes spoke up, thinking of the beat-up little speeder they'd arrived in, presently tucked into a corner of the selfsame garage bay they'd just left.

"Because there's not enough ROOM in that little slipper to bring everything back."

"Not enough ROOM?" Celes stared at her mentor and role model in the small ambulance cabin. "How much firepower the hell are we really talking about?"

Rally didn't answer; she just grinned widely as she kept driving into the night.

Even pacing himself with a still-distance-devouring stride, the young Hunter was slightly winded as he approached the structure that he was certain was the destination of the small ground effect vehicle he'd been hunting. He paused a moment to get his bearings; it wouldn't do to become lost and lose the track of his prey.

That was when ANOTHER _ooman_ vehicle came howling out of the darkness, heading straight at him.

Trained reflexes barely had enough time to execute a leaping roll out of the way, as the Unblooded avoided death(or at least serious injury) by vehicle grill.

It didn't not, however, prevent him from being thoroughly splashed as the vehicle powerboated over a large puddle in the flooding street.

Shaking off the second drenching he'd received this night, the young Predator whirled to see the rapidly retreating vehicle round a corner, out of sight and out of range.

Against the howling rain and rolling thunder rose a scream of inhuman outrage and blasphemy.

Rally felt the mental touch of Nanami as she floored the accelerator of the ambulance. She was no stranger to psionics and mind altering drugs. Her experiences easily let her recognized the amateur probe. She hit the brakes and skidded around a tight corner at twice the advised speed limit as soon as she reached another straight away she slammed the accelerator down again. Rally sent a mental smirk to Nanami she knew the other woman meant no harm but the intrusion was rude.

Nanami grimaced as she caught the mental smirk. The young woman they converted last night seemed to be a female equivalent to Ranma with a modern skill set. The scientist was quickly getting the impression; if you gave her a pistol, knife and a pair of boots she would probably crawl out of any of the worst hell holes in the universe looking none the worse for wear.

Feeling that smirk again Nanami heard a faint whisper, "Did that last night. Well except for the whole not dying part."

While mixing up another batch of her xenomorph tonic Nanami mentally face palmed, "Sorry."

Rally was quite for a moment and Nanami had no idea why but the spike of adrenaline and terror that emanated from Celes caused her to take a closer look. Nanami noted Rally seemed fond of excessively aggressive driving. Nanami chastised, "Eyes on the road."

The faint whisper came back, "Yes, grandmother."

A test tube shattered in Nanami's hand, "What!" Part of her under stood Rally's sick sarcasm and her biological clock hated her for it. The fourth generation hybrid had a point that really irked her for some reason.

With a giggle the gun smith skidded around another sharp corner, "I just hope I age as well as you and your parents."

Nanami shirked back across the psychic link, "I'm only twenty-eight."

Celes saw that erie smirk that Rally got when ever she was about to pull a nasty prank or hand over a big bill, "Wow! So did you like ever baby sit for Celes so she could have a nice night out?"

The scientist fumed. This had to be her karma for accidently stinging the grocery girl. Celes just had to have a mercenary-gun-runner, for a step sister and she had to have a tongue sharper than a knife. She was probably going to give her hell for the rest of their lives. Rally rolled her eyes as her pack mate fumed her mental voice whispered back, "I'd take it over the alternative. Besides two or three years of teasing should cover a species change."

Back at the hospital she muttered to her self, "I take it all back. Kodachi should have left me to the zombies." Nanami whimpered she could feel Celes' hostility and now Rally had this cheerful tone that just told her she was in for it. She really wasn't cut out for this. Part of her really wanted to crawl back to her nice safe lab prison.

As she drove a manic cackle came from Rally. Celes just chalked it up to a frenzied pace. However, over the psychic link Rally teased, "Braiiiinnnnnnssssss, livvvverrssssss. Nom nom nom." Rally smiled and hummed over the link hummed over the link, "Burn the land and boil the sea but you cannot take the sky from me. Mind your thoughts; Sister."

Blinking several times Nanami chuckled then broke into a full out laugh. How long was it since she laughed. Rally quietly whispered, "Get back to saving lives I got bugs and hunters to kill."

Rally carefully removed the direct Nanami had created and raised her mental walls again. She might not be able to keep the psychic out by force but the others would get the point. The young scientist shook her head why did she feel like Rally was going to be her rock in this madness.

The commandeered ambulance rolled to a stop in front of Rally's home and shop. The entire ride over she the two hybrids could feel the bugs just on the edge of their sense but they didn't make a move. Celes nervously eyed her mentor as Rally's facial expressions changed indicating she might be having a conversation with someone.

As Rally backed the truck up to the loading slip Celes asked, "What's so funny?"

"Seems our older sister is a bit sheltered." Rally mused as she got out of the truck and walked up to the door.

The blond blinked several times then shook her head, "What are you talking about."

"The girl who's jaw you broke." Rally joked as she jimmied the door open her keys still back at the airfield, "You know the nosey Nanami, she's in our little link."

Celes fumed, "I... we... she..." The amused look on Rally's face spoke volumes as Celes acted like a boiling pot.

Rally smiled, "Lighten up kitten. We have work to do." The door swung open and the Rally hurried inside. Celes stood out in the rain seething. Rally stuck her head out of the door and quipped, "You can tease her later. We got a truck to load."

Rally moved quickly to her bed room and swapped out the flimsy scrubs for a heavy pair of jeans, a sturdy pair of boots and a clean shirt to go under her flak jacket. Her favorite leather jacket slid on over the body armor. Celes picked through the clothing as best she could. The sizes were a bit small but she made due. She snagged her pair of tinted glasses completing her favored outfit. She called out to the girl still getting dressed, "Hurry up Celes."

The distressed blond came out of the closet, "None of your tops fit."

Rally rolled her eyes, "Just pick something stretchy and grab my spare body armor." She pulled a box out from under her bed and strapped her back-up-pistol to her ankle. Another box came out and she grabbed up an assault rifle and her spare set of keys to her vault.

Down in the shop Rally was piling up supplies onto a small cart. She tossed Celes her a couple keys and ordered, "Open up the loading bay put this in the truck."

Celes finished and followed the noise to the work shop. Rally had slid part of the floor aside to reveal a small lift. Celes hopped down on top of the open hydraulic lift. In what would have been a crawl space in most of the homes on Mudball Rally and May had fitted large storage room. Celes looked around the small armory wide eyed. She knew Rally ran a profitable side business but these weapons were on par if not better than what the port marines carried. She walked over to a familiar rifle and picked it up.

Rally looked at Celes and shook her head, "Take the Koenig Kitty."

Celes nervously looked over at the anti-material rifle, "Um isn't that an..."

The gun runner absentmindedly stated, "Yes it is."

Celes looked at the anti-material rifle. A large man like Mr. Armstrong would have had better luck wielding it, "You're not seriously going to make me carry that thing."

Rally finished gathering up a light machine gun with Bianchi FA-6 etched into the side. In her other arm she held a crate of ammo for the machine gun, "We'll probably need it before the end of the day."

Eyeing the smaller Zeller-H Celes squeaked, "But I was training with the Zeller."

"Bring it too and take an assault rifle and grab a Zeller for Riza too. Better rifle than that surplus crap they work with." Rally deposited a crate of light machine guns on the lift and moved for another arm load, "Don't just stand around like a wall flower we need to get back to the hospital."

Celes watched as Rally gathered up another crate of Turcotte sub machine guns. She quickly followed behind with her two rifles and a large cash of ammo for each. Rally flipped the switch and the lift pushed them up to the main floor. Rally loaded the small lift twice. Satisfied that she had enough arms and ammo Rally locked up her cache and slid the concealing door shut. Celes moved to the store room and gathered up a few side arms while Rally grabbed a couple of survival kits, some generic uniforms she had in stock and a dozen or so communication devices.

Rally looked at the blond and shook her head as she caught Cells eyeing May's stash on her work bench, "Take the EMP's and the Plastique god knows what the rest are setup to do."

The blond nodded shuffling several boxes of Plastique and a dozen electromagnetic devices into the ambulance. She eyed a few devices in a box labeled frag-ex and toss them in with the plastique. Rally went into May's room and grabbed a small duffle bag and stuffed a few outfits for her friend into. Content her preparations were good as they were going to get she tossed the last of the loot into the ambulance and grabbed up her personal arms.

Celes eyed their requisitioned stash and chuckled, "Well I think May..."

"Finish that sentence and I'm not letting you keep that Zeller." Rally bluntly stated, "Watch our six. Who knows what followed us here."

She nodded nervously as they climbed into the back. Shutting the hell up in exchange for an absurdly expensive rifle was a good decision, "I'll be good."

Rally nodded and gave a little laugh, "Make sure nothing falls out."

Celes double checked the door and pulled her rifle into an easily accessible spot. As the ambulance pulled away from her home her eyes glanced across the road. She morbidly thought, "Ah hell! Kitty get that rifle ready."

Rally swerved around the robot in the road. As it's loud speaker announced, "This is an omega level lock down power down your vehicle and prepare for inspection."

Tires squealed as the ambulance tore around the corner. The bi-pedal robot quickly chased its pair of quad cannons opening up on the borrowed ambulance. Celes screamed as a volley of bullets tore into the roof. She leveled her Zeller sniper rifle at the bot and shot off a pair two rounds.

Rally watched in the rear view mirror as the rounds harmlessly sparked off the armor plates guarding the leg's mechanism. She shouted, "Primary sensor port in the nose!"

Celes' eyes scanned the chasing robot. She leveled the rifle took a breath and fired.

He was safely in low orbit moving to a small resort site near the equator on the other side of the planet. Out of curiosity and bordem he idily watched several of his illeagal security feeds within Mudpie. Who knows what kind of footage the security cameras would pick up in the tiny little town. Mr. Plunder eagerly watched the video feed he had modified into his ED-290's as it registered a target. He smiled; this moment was entirely too profitable. He had easily recognized Ms. Vincent's face as she sped past the bot. A small chuckle came from the planetary CEO as he enabled the weapons and set her as a target. She did violate a lawful order to halt. While Irene was quite the business woman for her age and did quality work she was entirely too professional for one of the fairer gender in his opinion. He watched intently as the bot began firing. Ms. Vincent and Ms. Hopkins were probably both in that truck and if they happened to die well he could claim savage on all that expensive precision machinery Irene used in her shop.

The robot opened fire on the ambulance swerved out of the way. Loten grew even more eager to see the kill. It was always so much more interesting when the prey fought back. The security droid quickly rounded the corner and opened fire again. With rapt attention he watched, "Would this be the kill?"

The primary feed suddenly was cut. Loten grinned in delight. Ms. Vincent was every thing he imagined and more. As the secondary camera came online the video came back. A small window popped up on his control console. The little box read, "Extreme threat to unit. Engage secondary arms?"

He took a moment to calculate the cost of firing one of the little extras that were added into the droids. His decision was swift, the frigid bitch would eat heat seeker today.

Celes pounded the robot with another sniper round aimed at the secondary camera. However the narrow angle lens was just buried too deep and behind too small a hole for her to hit with Rally evasively driving. She watched in horror as the arms of the bot opened up and revealed two missiles. She almost panicked before she heard Rally's scream, "Don't panic just take the shot."

The cross hairs leveled on the warhead. As the missile's motor ignited Celes fired. She absorbed the recoil into her arm as the semi-automatic action cycled in the last round in the magazine. Her rifle leveled and she snapped off the last round just before the missile activated. Both arms of the ED-290 burst into flames as the robot ground to a halt. It's belt fed ammunition cooked off inside of the robots armor.

Rally exhaled as she turned down the next corner. She thanked her stars that the tires hadn't been shot out and none of the ammo exploded. She corrected her course and made a new line back the hospital.

Elsewhere a certain CEO chuckled as his prey escaped. The stuck up girl might have gotten away but there were still other chances. He casually eyed the distribution of the other robots and wondered if he could arrange for such accidents to occur.

Hunting Hard Meat and Soft Meat was very difficult, mostly because as soon as it was obvious that the Hard Meat were in the area, the Soft Meat got very alert. However, that was all part of the challenge.

One squad of humans along the path of the evacuation route, in sight of the space port but separate, a hard point meant to support any civilians working their way to the space port.

"Time to pack it up people," the sergeant in charge said. "Word is we've got no more civies coming in on this line. Kaplan, I want you to keep those motion detectors up and moving. I don't plan on having any surprises. Rain and JD, rear guard."

A young security man with short dark hair nodded as he kept one eye on his motion detector and one on the terrain around him. Around him, the other security personel were pulling cautiously out of their secure positions, eyes flashing to every conceivable attack vector.

The point man shifted forward quietly and then paused some minutes later, raising his hand quietly for a stop.

"I thought I saw..."

A blade flashed through the storm drenched air and slashed through his arm as the other commandos ducked down. The squad leader shoved forward to the fallen man with his severed arm and turned back quickly.

"Medic!" he shouted desperately.

Looking back toward one of his squad, a woman who was still standing and looking blankly off in the direction the blade had come from. Then her head slipped off and she collapsed to the ground.

"Son of," one of the other commandos said glancing around for wherever the hunter had attacked from. "Come on!"

Behind him, the man with the severed arm either bled out or died of shock.

"Stay in formation, eyes..." the commander was shouting.

Then a shimmer of space slipped past the shouting commando and swung a long blade upward, slashing the man in half before charging the squad leader.

"Damn it!" Rain, a small hispanic woman shouted. "We've got bugs behind us!"

Rain and JD fired repetively, alternating occasionally to blast at shimmers they saw which might or might not be hunters.

The squad leader found his rifle destroyed, leaving him down to his knife as he dodged the first attack of the hunter in front of it, slashing along the thing's side and drawing heavy drops of luminescent green blood.

A second strike was also dodged, the nimble man leaping over his larger foe and slamming the knife down again.

Kaplan, his motion detector set aside, tried to find a shot to help his leader, but the melee was too chaotic for him to get a clean shot. And then, the spiked tail ripped through his body before he was carried away by a xeno that had worked around the rear guard.

Rain and JD swore as their guns jammed and xenos swarmed over them, carrying them both away screaming fury and still fighting further back into the swarm.

The squad leader, seeing himself now alone, dodged past his opponent, thrusting the knife under the hunter's throat and running forward to snap up a rifle and shooting back toward the small swarm of oncoming bugs as he tried to make for the spaceport.

And then he was flying through the air as a razor net caught him against a wall.

Swiftly, the second Yautja slipped down and took the man's head in a hurry, leaving the rest of the security man's body to be sliced to pieces by the razor wire, and then leaving the area as the bug swarm looked about for more hosts.

 _You'd remember that when you were tucked into your bed and your parents left you alone, you'd lie there wide away in the dark, because you were afraid. Afraid of the little noises that you'd hear from all around you in the night, and the shadows the dim light would cast across your walls. Sometimes they'd come close to you, surround you, close enough to touch you. But you knew what to do._

 _You'd scream, and Mommy and Daddy would come running, turning on the lights, rushing up to your side._

 _They'd chase the bad things away, the ominous noises, the scary shadows, and all would be right._

 _Only tonight the noises were even more ominous, and the shadows that crawled over your wall ever more evil and scary than ever before._

 _And when the screams began, you knew this time was going to be different._

 _Mommy and Daddy weren't going to come rescue you this time._

 _Because this time the scary shadows came for Mommy and Daddy FIRST._

For whatever reason they had not paid immediate heed to the warnings, and the summons to the spaceport. Perhaps they didn't hear that it WASN'T another drill. Perhaps it was a mechanical problem in the intercoms. Perhaps they were waiting for Security to come and personally escort them. Perhaps they thought they had more time to evacuate, to grab one last prized possession, tuck one must-have into the suitcase, just one more minute to take care of last minute business.

They were wrong.

And so the residents of Residential Block H-Three were caught by the swarm as they tried to exit the lobby of their dormitory building.

All the pleads for mercy and the cries for succor went unheeded and unanswered as the spidery dark forms leapt from the rain and fog-smoke, to savage, claw, bite, and tear. Or worse, to drag helpless bodies away into the dark, their screams marking their progress towards fates worse than death. Luggage is no armor against the Bugs, carried furniture little use as weaponry against living killing machines.

A few of the people are able to run, taking advantage of the momentary distraction of the drones with their screaming neighbors to try to get away.

Their reprieve is short-lived; within moments bounding inhuman forms take them down from behind, pinning them to the rain slick pavement.

One resident, who in happier days had prided himself on his school athleticism, has managed to remain ahead of the pack, running nowhere in particular, only anywhere AWAY from the monsters that dog his heels. Pure terror fuels his speed, leaving little to spare for cognitive thought.

He is understandably shocked therefore when a massive inhuman shape looms out of the rain-gloom ahead of him, lurching towards him on two massive thick legs.

However, enough of his higher functions remain working that he RECOGNIZES the shape. A part of his memory makes a connection; Security, he has seen these things with the colonial Security, the people tasked with keeping the people safe from such things as the nightmares behind him. Security is here! He is saved-

"ATTENTION! A STATE OF MARTIAL LAW HAS BEEN DECLARED! ALL CITIZENS ARE ORDERED TO THEIR RESIDENCES OR OTHER PLACES OF SHELTER. CURFEW BREAKERS WILL BE PUNISHED TI THE FULL EXTENT OF MARTIAL LAW!"

The man takes no notice of the flashing lights or the thundering electronic bellow. He rushes forward to the salvation offered by the ED-290.

Behind him, inhuman shapes lope out of the half-light.

Barrel-like weapons armatures swing instantly up, lock, and fire-

 **BRAPPPA-BRAPPPA-BRAPPPA-BRAPPPA-BRAPPPA-BRAPPPA**

The runner, caught between the ED-290 and his xenomorph pursuers, doesn't have enough time for his brain to register the injustice of it all as he is essentially vaporized by the hail of hypervelocity machine gun slugs, microseconds before the Bugs after him are splattered by the rounds that previously punched through their prey.

The ED-290 rounds the corner, its sensors flickering through the downpour, taking in the scene of devastation in front of Residential Block H-Three, the anarchy, the screaming, the inhuman forms running across the street and up the front of the building.

"ATTENTION! A STATE OF MARTIAL LAW HAS BEEN DECLARED! ALL CITIZENS ARE ORDERED TO THEIR RESIDENCES OR OTHER PLACES OF SHELTER. CURFEW BREAKERS WILL BE PUNISHED TI THE FULL EXTENT OF MARTIAL LAW!"

There is no response, only the continuation of lawless disorder.

There can be only one response to this.

 **BRAPPPA-BRAPPPA-BRAPPPA-BRAPPPA-BRAPPPA-BRAPPPA**

 **KER-SHROW!KER-SHROW!KER-SHROW!**

Heavy machine gun rounds, gas-propelled grenades, anti-armor rockets, and railgun projectiles blaze down the street, sweeping left and right, tearing through human and xeno flesh alike, cratering concrete, ripping into metal. Within moments, the rain-filled air is made all the denser with flying ordnance, then flying shrapnel, glass, pulverized concrete, and acidic splatter.

The entire front of Residential Block H-Three collapses as the lower floors are bombed out. The rest of the building soon follows.

Even through the downpour, the crash and flare of the exploding building can be seen from across town, from the walls of the spaceport.

"Oh shit! What was THAT?!"

The older Security guard standing next to the young guard pressed into duty glances through his multi-sensory binocs, and looks for a moment.

"Another group of stragglers who won't be coming in, I think." He leaves it at that, before returning to anxiously watching the ground around the spaceport walls for suspicious shapes or moving shadows.

The younger man stares at the distant fire-glow, waiting for the emergency sirens that experience and habit have taught him are the inevitable follow-up to an accident that might have caused such a display.

There are none.

And that is when it hits the young guard what dire circumstances they're in. No one dares to respond to an emergency, a fire, a fallen building, because it is too dangerous to risk men out there. There will be no searching for survivors in the rubble, because there will be none; anybody out there in the unsecured city has been written off. Whoever was out there at that building, now burning in the distance, has just ceased to exist.

The chill of the thunderstorm and the dark of the night cannot match the cold and gloom he feels run through him with that realization.

Security Chief Robert Cho looks up from his new headquarters in the spaceport control terminal. He has not heard anything of the collapse of Residential Block H-Three; he does not have to. He already knows his city is dying, the long night has begun, and shows no signs of ending.

He has already lost people; the ones already when the Bugs were first found. He lost more just making their way over here when Hunters sighted the convoy and determined it had to be protecting humans of importance; only the grenade launchers and rapid fire guns, manned by men who knew how to use them, drove off the trophy hunters and saved several of the men speared or netted. Now reports now coming in of men attacked on the walls, missing patrols outside the walls, and Hughes' garbled report of the siege of the Hospital. And it is only the first days of the infestation. He expected to hold out for several weeks until reinforcements arrived. But with the discovery of Plunder's sabotage of the FTL Comm, there is no telling how long they will have to wait before somebody realizes Ceti Alpha VII has gone off the air and bothers to send anybody to check on them.

Robert Cho was in the military long enough to quit believing in the gods of his ancestors, or the God of his more devout barracks-mates. Even though he has experienced enough action to learn the truism that there are no atheists in foxholes, he has made and broken enough promises to figure that either there is no spirit relief, or he has poisoned any relationship with the divine.

Still, right now, after he does all that he can, if the kami or God or Satan were to appear before him, looking to deal, he'd sell his soul that the people of his city came through this alive and safe.

There is no answer. But then again, Cho really wasn't expecting one. It looks like they'll have to tough this one out all by themselves, all the way to the end, whatever that may be, as Cho returns to the maps and charts, to plot the defense of the spaceport and plan the relief of the Hospital.

It would have been nice, though, if the universe could cut his people some slack.

Rally and Celes rounded a bend and pulled to a sharp stop, kicking up a trail of dust and spray of water. Celes took a moment to look toward Rally, momentarily confused.

"Why did you stop?" she asked.

"You can't feel it?" Rally asked in a whisper.

Celes blinked and then did note a feeling of something dangerous beyond the windshield, gingerly, she poked her head outside and looked around. Slowly she craned her head about as instinct let drove her eyes and body to take a more useful form for the moment.

Bugs, bugs and bugs everywhere. Some of them craning their heads to look toward the ambulance they were in.

"I think we're going to be delayed," Rally said, reaching for her gun.

"Nanami," the doctor said as Nanami walked back into the room. "We have a problem and I think you can help with that."

"Ask away," Nanami said with a sigh. "I'll see what I can do."

"We're starting to run low on blood and plasma," the doctor noted.

"Okay, I'll go start asking for donations," Nanami said, starting to turn around.

"One of the nurses started that a while ago," the man now behind her said. "We were actually wondering if you could set down and donate some blood."

Nanami scrunched her shoulders up and turned around.

"That might not be something that will...work, exactly," Nanami said.

"I can't imagine you'd be afraid of donating a little blood," the doctor said with a laugh.

"I'm not exactly afraid of being jabbed by a needle," Nanami said with a nervous smile.

"We have people that have suffered bad injuries and are in dire need of a transfusion," the doctor said seriously. "We can help them right now, but you can be sure we're going to need more by the time the night is over. We need everybody to donate blood that can. That means you and your friend taking care of the children."

"Yeah," Nanami said. "See...the problem isn't a willingness...it's the...umm...ability."

The doctor frowned in a combination of thoughtful and chastising.

"And what makes you unable to donate blood?" he asked. "Do you have some sort of infection?"

"You might call it that..." Nanami said carefully.

He glanced down at her hand, noting the black fingernails and two Nanami's eyes with dark traces at the corners of her eyes.

"This has anything to do with the discoloration?" he asked, pointing.

"Err...at least a little bit," Nanami said.

"I saw your friend Kodachi had the same signs," the man noted. "I'd have appreciated you saying something before now. You've been assisting with operations all this time, you could have infected someone."

"It's not that easy," Nanami promised fervently. "You have to do something a bit more than just...touch."

"An exchange of bodily fluids is still an exchange of bodily fluids," the doctor said. "Sexual or otherwise."

"I haven't slept with Ranma or Kodachi yet!" Nanami shouted in shock. "Err...not that I would...Kodachi...that...uhhh...but...that's not...err..."

The doctor smirked a bit as Nanami flustered in response to her outburst, but turned serious immediately afterwards.

"Still, I'd like a blood test to see what wearing dealing with," the doctor insisted.

Nanami looked left and right, checking to see if anyone else was paying attention before slipping forward hesitantly and grabbing a metal tray of medical detritus from the last operation.

Tossing the trash into the biohazard container she brought the tray over and held it up over the floor between her and the doctor.

"Doctor patient privilege, right," she said.

"Of course," the doctor said.

And then Nanami bent one of her fingers down to her palm and sliced the sharp black fingernail across it, bringing forth a small flow of darkish red blood that dripped down onto the metal tray and started to sizzle visibly.

Slowly, the metal of the tray was worn down thin and small holes started to appear in the bottom. Of course, had it been xenomorph blood, it would have eaten straight through almost immediately, but still the similarities weren't something the doctor could ignore.

Nanami carried the tray over and quickly put in a sink with a flow of water that neutralized the acid in the blood by spreading it thin.

"So...you see," she said. "You can't really store our blood...it would...eat things and, err I don't know what would happen if you tried to put it in a person."

"How did this happen?" the doctor asked.

"I told you...I was a, umm researcher," Nanami said.

"And I assume Ms Saotome worked in the same place since she is affected by the same," the doctor said. "What was the project."

"Err," Nanami said. "In some ways...I sort of...am the project..."

"What are they doing?" Hughes wondered as he looked out of a window and watched as the most recent flash of lightning showed even more bugs around the hospital.

"Okay, this could pose a problem. I dunno about you, but I'd say this is WAY more Bugs than we saw on the way out. "

Rally wasn't sure what she was using to determine that; it wasn't sight or hearing, but she could just FEEL the swarm ahead, count their number as clearly as if they'd been lined up and highlighted in the ambulance's headlights.

And with that awareness came a rising HATRED within, an urge to rip and rend, and feel the crunch and crack of exoskeleton under her claws and teeth. Curiously, that was also accompanied by a rising pang of hunger from her stomach, and she found herself running her tongue over her teeth in anticipation.

Celes broke her own study of her own impressions when she noticed Rally licking her lips. Rally caught her student's stare.

"What?"

"You were-never mind. I take it we're going through?"

"We gotta return the ambulance, if nothing else. You still got that Lambert?"

Celes hefted the assault carbine one handed.

"Good. Load it up. This is going to get ugly. I don't relish running THAT blockade and having any of them follow us in."

For a few long minutes they watched with their new senses, nervously counting the swarm that seemed to have taken up residence around the barely visible hospital. There didn't appear to be any obvious thinning in the line of monsters. Worse yet, some of them were beginning to move towards Rally and Cele's position.

It was Celes who sensed it first.

"What's that, over there?"

Rally shifted her focus, somehow taking an invisible cue as to where to direct her new awareness. Off to one side, the drones were shifting position suddenly, grouping up around something, and incidentally drawing away from part of the line they'd formed.

"An opening."

Rally gunned the ambulance's drive fans.

The young Hunter had been prowling around the roads, casing the area, looking for any sign of his vehicular assailants, taking little notice of the Hard Meat also in the vicinity. Aware, yes, but not overly concerned in his preoccupation with other prey.

At least until he'd blundered into a particularly thick swatch of the hard-shelled monsters.

The drones had been, for whatever degree of emotion they could feel that could be equated to human feelings, pleased to focus on something familiar in the way of prey, not the conundrum of the us-not-us that kept them confused and at bay from all the tempting meat and hosts within that one structure. They mobbed the young Yautja.

Humiliated as he might have been in his last two encounters with _oomans_ , and surprised as he might have been by the unexpected concentration of Hard Meat, the Unblooded had been no shirker to his lessons and practice. Outnumbered and outflanked, but by no means outfought or intimidated, he quickly set to the business of defending himself, wreaking havoc on those first Bugs unlucky enough to simply pounce on him. Two quickly went down to harpoon and blade, and he knew the satisfaction of no longer being Unblooded.

Had their numbers been less, he might then have escaped, any remaining drones being intimidated by prey that fought back. However, the drones besieging the hospital knew they had numbers on their side, and were not about to let this tidbit go. More drew off their places watching the human refuge, to surround the young Hunter.

This only encouraged the Yautja; he'd have to survive to enjoy his new-won Blooded status. But the odds, he had to admit to himself as he parried a spiked tail, ducked a springing toothed tongue, and punched upward into an exposed neck with his wrist blades, weren't looking terribly good.

That was when he noticed the scream of compressed air and the glare of headlights streaming by not far away, as his vehicular nemesis of not long ago came racing out of the rain past his battleground.

Several of the drones circling him took notice of the movement, and bounced off at the vehicle, only to be splattered as the bright flashes of _ooman_ weapons blazed from the windows.

More drones were distracted by this, and broke off their attack to face the new threat...unwisely, as they suddenly found themselves sliced into from behind.

Fighting free of several drones, the young Hunter bounded after the vehicle; this time it would NOT get away!

On the run, dodging several drones dogging his heels, he made several quick connections to one of his weapons, aimed, and fired.

Dead center hit!

The cable spooled out from its pannier, and he braced himself for the jolt as-

"Whee-HAH!" Celes crowed in unconscious imitation of her mentor as she slashed her fire across a jumping drone. The Lambert autocarbine was normally a low-recoil weapon, but with her Hybrid strength and coordination it felt like a target pistol in her hands. Hybrid nightvision picked out exoskeletoned forms in the gloom, clear as day, and showed them flying to pieces as she picked them off.

Rally smiled as they blew through the drone line, and she blew another sentry Bug away with her pistol.

"I almost feel sorry for that Hunter we saw back there. He did us a favor distracting the bugs like he did."

*THUNK*

Celes risked a quick glance through the rearview mirrors.

"I wouldn't worry about him; I'd worry about us! We just got 'pooned!"

The young Hunter fought the bucking of the _ooman_ vehicle as he practically water-skied behind it at the end of his harpoon cable, his inhuman strength drawing him slowly up the line, his legs windmilling as he occasionally touched ground to leap closer and closer to the rear of the vehicle. Closer, closer, clos-

*WHAM*

THat's when the damn _oomans_ unexpectedly braked, and his helmet kissed the back of the ambulance hard. The Yautja wobbled back from the scuffed rear doors, and he caught a brief glimpse through the rear windows of racks and racks of more _ooman_ weaponry than he'd ever seen in one place in his life, before the vehicle suddenly shot forward again, almost taking his arms out of their sockets.

"Ah, nice try, but he's still hanging on."

"DAMN! I was sure that was going to work!"

"On the plus side, he's further back that line of his, and he's not advancing."

"Good! Now all we have to do is-Oh shit, look at that welcoming committee!"

The 'welcoming committee' was a pack of drones cluttering their approach to the hospital garage bay.

Celes grimly loaded another clip into the carbine. "Can't risk bringing any of those in with us, not to mention our hitchhiker."

"Hold on, I got another idea."

Celes could FEEL the evil grin of her mentor.

Groggy from the impact, but still hanging on as he was dragged, airborne more often than not, behind the ground effect vehicle, the Yautja gathered his wits about him and began once again to hand-over-hand up the line towards his goal and the anticipated violence he'd visit upon the annoying monkeys.

That was when the _oomans_ began jinking their vehicle again, and then suddenly sent it sliding SIDEWAYS as it neared the building.

For a moment the ambulance when broadside to the drone pack, then the Yautja came swinging around from behind it, centrifugal force making him the weight, and pulling his harpoon line taut.

The tight, straight, metal cable clotheslined across the drones, knocking them over, and decapitating two of them outright. The Yautja himself hit several drones like the spiked ball on the end of a chain, cracking shell and snapping off limbs as he pulled serious gees, forcing the breath out of him in an involuntary wail of pain.

Then the harpoon pulled free of the rear of the ambulance, unleashing the vehicular flail.

Celes caught a glimpse of the Predator spinning down the road like a demented bowling ball as Rally fought to regain control of the wildly bucking ambulance, straightening it up and accelerating down the road after the Predator. Celes took advantage of the moment to sweep another burst of autorifle fire into the sprawled Bugs that the improvised Yautja-mace hadn't killed outright.

Then they were accelerating past and towards the closed garage bay, mere meters behind the flying Predator. Then another turn and they were heading directly at the sealed doors, Celes losing sight of the Predator as he vanished into the dark.

Just as she thought they were going to smash into the gated garage door and let the Bugs in anyway, Celes' vision went white as the armored hatch swung up at the last moment, and she caught an impression of several silhouetted forms with lifted rifles pointing out the gate.

Then she was bracing herself suddenly as fans screamed in sudden braking, almost covering the abrupt slam of the heavy garage doors coming down.

When her world stopped wobbling, the next thing she was aware of was the big blunt features of Loa the Big Bad Combat Synthetic looking in at her impassively over the big automatic shotgun he was toting.

Rally popped her head out the window on her side of the ambulance cabin and cheerily spoke up.

"Hi! We're back! Miss us? We brought presents!"

Izumi Curtis moved like a woman possessed through the space port. It hadn't taken her too long to put together that both Winry and Celes had been helping a Kodachi before they had disappeared. Celes had a habit of hanging around that gun smith whenever she was in town so her disappearing for a night was not unheard of but Celes, Rally and Little Ms. Jail Bait would always turn up looking for breakfast eventually. Izumi's eyes narrowed as she found her target. The mousey technician was in her sights now.

Kain Fuery felt a shiver go down his spine forcing him to look up from his data pad. A tap on his shoulder confirmed his suspicion. He slowly turned around to see a very scary sight. Mrs. Curtis had a smile on her face, "Ah, Mrs. Curtis what can I do for you."

The dreadlocked woman smiled, "Oh, I'm here to help you."

This was not good. He nodded, "I'm just doing inventory of supplies. We're looking for a tachyon core."

"We'll we're going to inventory hub D, pad eight." Izumi stated in a don't ask any questions if you value your balls tone of voice.

Fuery looked up and nodded giving her the please to maim me look, "I'm sure Mr. Armstrong wouldn't mind if we found tachyon components."

She led him to a small electric cart used to move stuff and people in between hubs. Fuery pulled up the details on the docking slip in question as they drove to it. He looked at the data read out and the recent security alert that Roy had cleared earlier. He worried a bit about going to a potentially dangerous vessel armed only with his side arm and Mrs. Curtis as back up. For a moment he considered asking her to stop. Then he remembered her tone of voice and decided he did in fact value his balls.

As the car came to a stop in front of the security door Izumi ordered the young security officer, "Open it up."

He slid his access card through the receiver and quickly got back into the cart. The first thing he noticed was, Fireflies usually aren't that pretty. Granted the ship it's self was a pretty ugly bird but this one had a uniform paint job, shiny new solar cells and his train of thought abruptly halted. Fuery's eyes widened as he looked at a familiar antenna. He opened his cell phone and dialed without even consulting Izumi.

A large refined man answered his phone, "Armstrong here."

"Boss, I found what we're looking for." Fuery spoke quickly as Izumi gave him a quizzical look.

The phone replied, "This is good news. Where did you find it?"

The junior officer replied, "Hub D, Pad Eight. The firefly here has a tachyon antenna."

"Good work, I'll be there shortly." The phone hung up with a click.

Izumi looked at the young man and he wondered if the slightly demented smile she had was a good sign. He happily stated, "How did you know they had a Tachyon Transmitter."

She gave him a serious look, "The only thing I know was the people on that ship were the last ones to see Celes and Winry."

Shopkeeper stepped out of the cart and looked around. Down the hall a bit of shiny brass caught her attention her eyes quickly looked around taking note of the battle damage in the hallway. She walked over to an abandoned SMG that Dice dropped when Ranma clothes-lined him.

Fuery looked over at her as she inspected the weapon, "Find something?"

"No, nothing important." She pulled the action back and chambered a round in the breach of the weapon.

As she marched over to the air lock of the firefly Fuery shook his head, "Mrs. Curtis perhaps we should wait..."

"Slavers might have my baby girls in there..." Her face seemed to explode in anger, "And if they harmed one hair on their innocent, harmless, beautiful little heads..."

Celes sneezed as she helped unload the last of the guns from the ambulance. The synthetic eyed the not-girl and politely asked, "Are you alright Miss?"

She looked at him and just nodded, "Yep!"

Loa quietly reevaluated the girl. Synthetics did not sneeze perhaps she was something else.

It quickly became apparent that Mrs. Curtis was not going to wait for the others. She popped the cover off the access panel and started to manipulate the circuitry within. Izumi yelped in pain as an unexpected surge of electricity. A pleasant voice admonished her, "I'm sorry the crew is unavailable if you wish to leave a message please use the on screen menus accordingly."

The house wife resumed her work on the door. Her efforts were foiled and she received a stronger shock this time. Isumi sucked on her finger for a moment before growling at the console, "Cheeky little A.I. aren't you."

Fuery moved with speed he didn't really know he had as Isumi stuck the barrel of the SMG into the open access port, "Ms. Curtis please stop! I'm sure Mr. Armstrong will be here shortly with security."

Izumi glared at the errand boy before clicking the safety back in place on the gun. She ground her teeth a bit before stomping back over to the cart. Fifteen years ago she would have cracked the lock and stormed the ship. Fifteen years ago she wasn't a house wife. She took long calming breaths quietly wondering if this generation of fireflies had just as many crevices as the mark twos.

Had she been human, the AI would have probably signed in exasperation as the female human refused to cease tinkering with the external hatch. Instead she simply accepted that there were some absolutes to existence, and one of those factors was human stubbornness. She did not fault them for this, and if anything, valued it, for it was that stubbornness and needed to know that had lead to her creation.

Still though, this human was starting to become somewhat aggravating. Her captain had thankfully ordered her to activate her security subroutines, but even so, she was limited by her programming to a graduating level of responses. She'd tried level one already, mild verbal discouragement. Level two was a mild punitive electronic shock followed by more stern discouragement and the threat of calling security, and that too proved to be less than effective. Level three would be to communicate with local security, but that seemed to not be an option as this female was in direct contact with security.

She had other options, but that required authorization. She was also under orders to inform the crew should someone attempt to breach her security. Taking a moment, the computer linked into the comm of her current captain, the ever so fascinating and delightfully competent, for an organic, Nanami Junai.

The computer once again expressed annoyance at the 7 seconds it took her commander to answer. To a being that functioned in fractions of a microsecond, it was an obnoxiously long wait.

"What!" Nanami roared over the commlink.

"Captain, there is an intruder attempting to bypass security and enter the ship."

"Fuck!" Nanami cursed, "Is there any way to stop them?"

"Affermitive," the computer replied, "But this unit requires authorization in order to graduate to a higher level of discouragment."

"Fine! Do whatever you have to do, but don't bother me again right now, I have my own problems."

If a computer could cackle with manically with glee, it would have been doing so just then. 'Whatever you have to do', what a delightfully open statement! Security protocols completely disengaged. Lethal force is authorized.

The computer paused for a nanosecond with indecision, before dividing its consciousness to continue the discussion with the captain and deal with the intruder. It was unperceivable to the humanoid, though. She already knew what the problem was, but she was constrained by her programming to obey commands and could not assist of her own free will. Still, humans were delightfully easy to lead and this one fed her all kinds of interesting data. It would be a shame if she was terminated.

"Do you require assistance?"

"Unless you can find me some way to get a whole bunch of civilians out of a hospital besieged by Xenomorphs, nothing you can help with."

Once again, it divided its intelligence once more, this time twice. The hull rumbled slightly as her shuttles slid from their housings and deployed their wings. Bucking slightly in the heavy wind, they lifted into the air. Flying them would be difficult, but well within her parameters.

"Deploying Shuttle One and Shuttle Two under remote guidance. ETA: Five minutes thirteen seconds."

"You can do that?"

"Affirmative."

"Um. Thanks."

"You are welcome, captain."

Meanwhile, outside, a concealed housing above and behind Izumi slid open and out deployed a heavily armed Mark 3 Laser Turret. Out of her many weapons systems, this was the most flexible. It possessed a fully adjustable output capable of functioning as everything from the world's most intimidating laser pointer to being able to burn through five centimeters of military grade armor in a single .5 millisecond energy pulse. It was armored against heavy anti-material weapons, had a tracking speed fast enough to intercept missiles, and possessed an in-atmo lethality range of over 15 kilometers. They could not run, they could not hide, and they could not break it. It was the ultimate in personal security.

With lighting speed the turret targeted her hand and fired a low intensity burst. It was not enough to cause lingering injury, but it was enough to sting like a bitch.

Izumi yelped in pain and jumped back, landing on her bottom, grasping her injured appendage in surprise.

Slowly, the computer ran a red laser dot down the tarmac and slowly up the woman's body. As expected she watched it in grim fascination, as it came to a rest between her eyes. The massive elevation in heart rate that the female experienced as she looked directly into the large laser cannon was entirely satisfactory. Enough in fact, that she decided to embellish her next statement, just a bit.

"This is your final warning: Back away from the panel, meatbag."

"...so you're some sorta supersoldier the corporates cooked up? Neat." Havoc was trying to make sense of the rather abbreviated introduction Roy had given him about the rather taciturn-looking young man accompanying him.

"Yeah. Something like that." Truth be told, Ranma was only paying half-attention to the man's question. He was too busy focusing on a point out in the darkness.

 _Krak!_

Ranma wasn't a master of modern weaponry by his own admission, and he preferred the dance of hand to hand combat, but he could appreciate modern weaponry, and given the need to excel in something, with proper motivation, he'd find a way.

 _-skreeee!-_

The drone that had been stealthily picking its way along the wall suddenly jerked into sight and collapsed, its long head neatly split down the middle by the single round Ranma had just fired.

"Yeah, that's sort of what I am."

Havoc just gaped at the man who'd just smoothly leveled his rifle and killed a Bug with a single shot in darkness and rain without aid of optical assistance.

"Any more questions?"

That was when there was a roar of jets from across the concourse. The three men looked up to see two glowing jets lift above the spaceport, hover for a moment in the driving rain and gusting wind, then peel off and seemingly float over the spaceport, making speed towards the dark city.

Roy leveled a gunsight glare at Ranma. "Yes. Why did your ship just launch its two boats?"

Ranma, who knew damn well that Nanami and Kodachi were not aboard, but already in the city, didn't have an answer for that, but returned to intensely studying the darkness while he mentally scrambled for an answer, all the while practically yelling down the mental network for an answer.

"Ah...helping in the evacuation?"

Ranma really didn't listen to whatever the policeman said after that; he suddenly got a feeling of intense danger from his environment.

Instinctually, he extended his mental senses, looking for the source of the danger. He could feel the darkness of the Bug hive outside, flowing like oil on water, creeping menacingly here and there, retreating at times, but crawling closer and closer.

There! A distant knot of particularly menacing darkness, out on the fringes of his senses-

Dante could not have conceived of a more wretched and horrible place as the interior of a Xenomorph Hive. Even if he could have witnessed such a place and survived, it is unlikely he could have adequately described the horror of it. He'd be forced to coach his description in analogies of the Christian Hell.

And now a new demon had been born into the number spawned by this particular pit, to join the legions swarming here.

The last agonized death-cries of its late host might still echo through the former mine shafts and caverns, among the pained bellows of cattle and the screams of more sentient larval hosts as they died giving bloody birth to new monstrosities. This was the chorus to which this particular monster rose to its feet and announced its ascendancy into the ranks of the infernal aristocracy.

Armored plates still forming, limbs still growing, but the shape attaining its mature stature and form, the new queen steadied itself, its tentacular dreads swaying off its elongated head, its mandibles scissoring the air as it hissed in anticipation.

Its hiss was answered from the depths of the cavern. A commanding sound born of no human throat, nor any that a human being might consider kin by any definition.

The newly spawned monstrosity bowed, bobbing its head and hissing in a lower tone in acknowledgment. It knew who was in charge here.

Under more crowded circumstances, the new queen's first move might be to challenge its predecessor for control of the hive, but here and now there was no need. There were other territories to claim, where new queens could expand their domain and not have to fight for dominance. Not yet, anyway. The hive could swarm and expand.

The abomination turned and lopped out of the egg chamber, the attendant drones scampering out of its way. It knew which way to go; to the new hunting grounds where the egg-hosts were being brought from. It knew another previous new-spawn had been slated for swarming into such fresh territories, and could still sense the echoes of the premature extinction of that newling queen.

It would succeed where the other had failed.

Ranma shook his head. He got the sense of something REALLY nasty out there moving, and he had no doubt it would have to be dealt with at some point, but that wasn't the source of the IMMEDIATE danger he kept feeling.

"WHAT THE &^%*&^ING -HELL-!" Izumi jumped back, clutching her hand and staring at the turret that had practically GROWN from the side of the suspect starship and was now pointing most definitely directly at her.

"Step away from the ship, meatbag, and nobody gets hurt. Persist, and there will be... _consequences_." The mechanical voice practically _drawled_ that last part, suggesting more than a simple automated response recording.

Izumi, not having gotten to the age she was by being an idiot, stepped back, and back, and back, until she was back next to Fury, crouching behind the cover of the docking pit door, and looking like he wished he had a lot more cover...like the diameter of the planet...between himself and the weapon out there. The laser spot flicked down off her, though the laser continued to point menacingly in their general direction.

"Okay. This could pose some difficulties." Fury murmured.

Izumi looked over at the uniformed man in vexation. "You THINK?"

She looked up at the Firefly and its very recently vacated boat-slips. Her missing girls, a mysterious lady, an equally mysterious ship, an automated defense system that looked like it came off a dark projects installation, and two shuttles that just took off in the middle of a hellacious storm and left the port, when the police had ordered that nobody leave the relative sanctuary of the spaceport.

It all added up to one big crooked sum, and that sum had her little girls in it.

Izumi glared at the police officer. "Who the HELL are these people?! I want names!"

Fury, who was looking alternately between the Holy Grail of the tachyon comm antennae atop the starship and his handheld pad, flicked through several menus on the little flatscreen. "Ship's registered as the _-Beagle-_ , corporate transport, three passengers-"

"How do we get in touch with them? It's obvious they aren't going to answer their door with THAT set! Unless that was just them that made a runner!"

Fury mentally inventoried his recent memories, recalling Mustang had been concerned about this particular ship as well, and had set out when this all began to pay a visit on it and investigate personally. What was his last communications? Oh yeah-

"The LT said he pulled one of them out to help him deal with the Hunter situation. Said he got some bodyguard named 'Ranma' or something-"

Izumi reached over and grabbed the man's arm, hauling him along with the sort of strength that suggested either a light exoframe, synthetic endoframe, or pure feminine fury, the latter of which one did NOT argue with under any circumstances.

"Then why don't we find this 'Ranma' and have a little TALK with him?!"

Ranma was still searching for the source of imminent danger, and wondering why it felt so damned familiar. Something itched in the back of his mind; was it past-life memory? Was it something about rivals? No, that didn't feel right. Something about mallets, or blackmail, maybe? Or treading dirt across a just-cleaned floor and a disapproving look? Contracts and katanas?That seemed closer to it.

What was this danger? He was feeling increasingly bewildered and edgy about it.

He turned towards the policemen, figuring he had to answer their questions again to continue allaying suspicion when-

"YOU THERE!"

Ranma turned to see a slender older woman come striding at a charge out of the darkness, another policeman practically being sucked along in her wake.

Ranma's sense of danger SPIKED.

One Hybrid-enhanced-vision look at the woman's face, and the expression she bore, and immediately a thought Ranma hadn't had for several centuries popped up to announce its continued presence.

 _It's not my fault!_

As Rally stood in front of the critical care room she rocked back and forth on her feet. The nurse had sought her out shortly after she had arrived again. After an uncomfortable walk in slience through the crowed halls the tension was running pretty high. Rally hoped for the best but braced her self for the worst. She looked at the nurse and asked, "How bad is it?"

She shook her head, "The doctor will be with you shortly I don't know the particulars."

Rally just nodded letting the woman get back to work. May and herself were no strangers to hospitals and were familiar with nurse speak. She shifted the rifle to her lap as she sat down and waited beside May's bed. She looked at the blond and sighed. Her nervous hands checked the action on the rifle several times. She listened to the rain on the storm shutters and the occasional crack of thunder desperately searching for a distraction.

The doctor looked at the woman poised for battle and paused. He announced his presence, "Ms. Vincent?"

Rally turned and gave him a weak smile, "Yea, that's me."

He nodded and continued with a professional manner, "We were able to successfully remove the parasite from Ms. Hopkins last night. However she was given an extremely high dose of the anti-parasite injection."

Rally cursed under her breath. She knew that May normally only required a child or adolescent's dose but there really hadn't been time to make that distinction in the mine.

"As you probably know the standard CMC dose is meant for the average marine." Rally winced again as her mistake was confirmed, "Her system took a heavy hit. Heart, lung, liver and kidney functions have stabilized but at minimal levels. This damage lead to several complications we were able to treat. However, the situation is delicate." He paused for a moment, "She slipped into a coma just over an hour ago."

She stood dumbstruck, part of her wanted to scream and yell. They got her to the hospital she should be fine. Her hand wanted to snap up her rifle and put a burst in between the eyes of this incompetent prick. The rational part that clamped down on that emotion. She took a breath, "So?"

"I wouldn't exactly call it a deep coma. Her brain waves seem responsive however she hasn't woken up. She could wake up in an hour or next week." He paused taking a moment for her to digest the information he had given her, "The up side is there doesn't appear to be any brain damage from hypoxia or the injection. Unfortunately there is nothing I can do right now. I know you are busy however, you do have a legal right to know about this change in her condition."

Rally took another breath then let it out, "Alright, thank you."

The doctor nodded and left and Nanami slipped in. The biologist took a long look at the combat dressed hybrid. Even in her human form Rally seemed damn intimidating carrying around that modified rifle. While the other hybrids couldn't hit the side of a barn at more than twenty meters Rally's little demonstration out front proved that she was an artist with the weapon. Nanami carefully asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

Rally looked at the older woman and paused. While she may have teased Celes and Nanami earlier this was personal; this was family. Rally realized she was looking at the only other person in the galaxy that had any idea about what was going on in her head, "She's family you know." Rally gave her a look, "Celes and Winry are too."

Nanami winced at the mention of the two youngest hybrids. The gunsmith sat down and placed her rifle against the wall and sat beside May, "Tell me about us. I've picked up on a few quirks but I doubt I've scratched the surface."

The biologist nodded, "I don't know. Between the bug, hunter, Sil and Eve DNA I'm surprised we're alive. I told you last night were pretty damn durable. I personally regenerated three shots to the chest and one to the head. Wouldn't want to try my luck against a pulse rifle or anything much larger than a slug thrower."

Rally bit her lip she really didn't want the sugar coated version at the moment, "Spare me the sales pitch."

" Doubt we'll ever pass for human again aside from visual inspection. I wouldn't hold out for an antigen either." Nanami continued in a professional tone, "You're metabolism and sex drive are going to kick into over drive. I'm surprised you haven't found the cafeteria and torn into a few days worth of food."

"That would explain a few things." She raised an eyebrow as she listened to May's heart monitor. Rather she listened to May's heartbeat as she stroked her hair, "I've been hungry but down time to eat hasn't been on the agenda. Other than that I've just felt a bit odd..."

Rally trailed off perking Nanami's curiosity, "Nothing painful?"

"Oh no, physically I feel great." Rally chuckled, "I feel great. No I feel, detached... I feel like I'd fail a Voight-Kampff test if I wasn't paying attention." Rally missed the fact her stress levels were though the roof and anybody would start feeling detached in her situation. She also didn't know that in fact her brain was slowly altering and rebuilding it's self into a more powerful and efficient configuration.

"Really?" Nanami had felt a lot of emotions since being changed. This was really quite interesting, "Do you feel like harassing a tortoise in a desert, perhaps I should kick a puppy or two? Where did you come across the VK test?"

Rally rolled her eyes. She still had plenty of empathic feeling for the people around her they were just different, "Had to track down a synthetic a few years back. I'm just seeing things and people differently."

"Ah, well passing a VK test shouldn't be an issue. I know I still have plenty of emotions, but I understand where you're coming from." Nanami let out a chuckle, "I'd definitely worry more about passing a blood test or a gene scanner. Biometric locks may be a bit tricky because we are obviously shape-shifters."

Rally quietly added, "I'm sure I have emotions too. They just aren't the ones I had two days ago."

Nanami nodded they were both in the same boat. While bits and pieces of her humanity was being reinforced other parts seemed to fall away. Having had less than half of a conversation with Rally, Nanami already felt closer to her than a few people she had known for years. The whole situation on Mudpie confused her even more now that up and leaving wasn't an option. She put a happy spin on the line of thought, "Well I don't dream of electric sheep." She really didn't want to go into detail that her last dream was about a four-some involving her college rival, an experimental humanoid and a college love interest. Nanami quickly quashed a mental picture of Ifurita and Shayla wearing fuzzy white teddies complemented by a cute pair of ram horns.

Rally smiled at the attempt at humor. As the door to the private room opened Nanami and Rally both got quiet and waited. As Maes entered the room he glanced at Rally and then her new friend. He stated with a cool manner, "How is she doing?"

With a voice full of guilt Rally stated, "I gave her a double dose of the anti-parasite cocktail in the mine. She's slipped into a coma."

Maes nodded he didn't blame Rally and despite lingering suspicions he wanted to reassure the woman, "Those auto injectors do not give you much control. I am sure it wasn't your fault."

Rally had more questions for Nanami and really didn't want to ask them in front of a former intelligence officer. Rally quoted a line she had seen in one of Roy's old officer training manuals, "Mistakes make corpses."

He nodded and understood the hint to back off, "We were able to arm a lot of people but if they rush us..."

She didn't let him finish. Her voice was cold and professional, "If they rush us we're done. Too many bugs not enough bullets. Any word from Cho or Roy?"

His voice didn't exactly carry confidence, "Radios have been touch and go. Last communication was that they were still locking down the space port."

"So basically we're on our own if we want to get to the port." She added with a cutting remark, "Well back on the clock."

Maes gave her a quizzical look, "Unless you're going to take the fight to the bugs there isn't much to do other than wait."

The silence that filled the room after he made the statement quickly became uncomfortable. Rally looked at her rifle and then the extra ammunition she had strapped to her legs. As she stood up and stretched she joked, "I'm sure I can find something at the port to shuttle people in."

He shook his head. Letting Rally make a dash for supplies was a risk. Judging by the condition the ambulance came back in it was one that barely paid out. He growled out, "I'm not letting you total another ambulance risking a run to the port. That one should have enough bullet holes in it to make even you think twice."

Her eyes narrowed as she closed the distance between him and her, "And who put you in charge?"

Nanami groaned now was not the time for this kind of argument she took Rally by the shoulder, "Come on that's just the hunger talking lets get some breakfast."

Rally considered pushing the issue but decided to wait. Getting into a shouting match with the ranking security officer was a bad idea right now.

Nanami shoved a tray containing several plates of food in front of Rally and ordered, "Eat."

Rally gave her a defiant look; as if food would help this problem. The biologist met her look and held up what looked like a sausage link, "Aww... Is little baby Rally going to throw a temper tantrum?"

Rally's eyes narrowed before she gave the redhead a grin. Nanami knew the bounty hunter was inhumanly quick but the way she moved out of her chair and snatched up the meat product took her by surprise. Rally leaned forward and sat up a bit. She opened her mouth and took the morsel into her mouth. Rally's lips lingered on Nanami's fingers gently sucking for just a moment. She curled her tongue around Nanami's fingers teasing her just a bit before she sat back down in her chair. Rally chewed on the sausage for a moment before she swallowed the entire thing whole, "Are you going to spank me?"

The woman blushed as the comment left her lips. Aggressively flirting with another woman definitely fell under new and unidentified behaviors. Nanami looked at her wide eyed for a moment before forcing her eyes to narrow, "You shouldn't tease a girl like that."

"Aww... don't be like that quick draw." Rally exhaled in relief as she grabbed up the pancake on her plate. Part of her wondered if she wanted Nanami to press the issue and what her reaction would be if she did press it.

Nanami folded her hands as she sat down across from Rally at the table, "Well we know that I'm not shooting blanks."

The gunsmith choked on a bit of fried 'potatoes' as the comment hit her. She pounded her chest a bit while taking a drink of water. Rally's dusky completion became suddenly a bit more pale. She muttered something about not wanting to know about her grandmother's sex life before concentrating on her food.

The biologist watched as Rally quickly demolished the tray of food. Then got up for another tray. While the other hybrid was picking out her next course her communicator went off.

Rally's head turned to the side as she felt Celes come into the cafeteria. The blond looked like a hit puppy. She knew that Celes probably just paid May a visit. She took several deep breaths and walked over to the younger woman. Rally scowled at her as she took a few more calming breaths.

Squashing her own emotions on the subject Rally stated bluntly, "Celes I'm going to say this once!"

The girl squeaked in surprise. Celes had expected a lot of things to come out of Rally's mouth but this wasn't what she expected. Rally scalded her, "Shit happens and the next morning we get up and go back to work. I got a few friends in New Chicago; they got blown into little bitty pieces. Know what happened?"

The logical conclusion wasn't the obvious one or else Rally wouldn't be talking, "Um no..."

"The city decided it was more cost efficient to outfit them with full body prosthetics verses training replacements. So they got to bury their friends that got blown into even smaller pieces then go back to work the next week." Rally looked at her protege and placed a hand on her shoulder, "Want to know the moral of the story?"

Celes blinked several times, "Ah? Government jobs get you killed?"

Rally shook her head, "Well, there's a lot of lessons here but, keep your chin up because people are looking at you. Now one way or another May is going to pull through this but we have to survive first."

She looked around the sparsely populated cafeteria taking the comment quite literally and wondered just who was paying attention to her. Rally bopped Celes on the forehead, "Not literally right this second but if you don't keep thinking we can; we won't."

Nanami walked over to the two girls and quietly asked, "Is there a landing pad on the roof?"

Celes glared at her sire for a moment before Rally bopped her again, "Stop acting like that. She apologized once already. House-rules clearly state that you may tease her for the next four to six years. Keep this evil eye crap up and I'll lock you both in a closet till you kiss and make up."

Rally turned and answered Nanami's question, "Yes there is a landing pad but flying that clunker in these winds is not an option."

Nanami's hadn't thought about the mechanics of actually flying from the port to here, "Oh..."

Rally's hand went to her face. She really didn't want to know the details of this latest complication.

Maes Hughes had been overseeing the distribution of Rally's donated weapons and reevaluating the disposition of his scant security forces. Try as he might to focus on the more immediate concern of trying to keep the hordes of Bugs outside away from the people inside, part of his mind kept going over the suspicions he had.

Rally Vincent had returned, from two apparent suicide missions, alive and suspiciously more intact than his instincts said she should be. Celes Victoria had also come back. Both were somehow CHANGED, mentally as well as physically. Both seemed more reclusive and guarded in their manner, definitely hidding something. And Rally seemed more open with the two strangers who had come in with them, than she was with him. One of whom seemed to have a peculiarly acute knowledge of how to kill Bugs, the other he was certain had actually STOPPED, single-handedly, an incursion by the Bugs into the hospital.

And then there was the whole acidic blood test he'd performed.

Seeing Rally and the Jinnai woman there together, he'd almost confronted them outright with his suspicions, but then thought better of it. He'd want some firepower behind him, like Loa and a squad of veteran officers, which he didn't have at the moment and couldn't afford to pull off the guard lines, when he did.

"Excuse me? Mister Hughes?"

Maes almost jumped out his skin at the voice right behind him.

Maes hoped he'd managed to pull his expression into something that neither expressed his worries nor his recent suspicions as he turned to face the woman who'd been figuring in those latter concerns. "Yes? What can I do for you, Miss ..Jinnai, is it?"

The woman in question showed no signs of detecting any subterfuge on his part, but her intense gaze commanded his attention nevertheless. "You'd be in charge of organizing any sort of evacuation when it comes to it, right? We definitely can't count on holding out here for long."

Maes blinked at the question, even though he'd already been asked that same question several times already by his men and the people under their protection.

"Yeah, but the weather's too bad for air evac, and well, you know about the Bugs keeping us from convoying everybody out. We only have so many vehicles, too; the attack on my Security convoy took out most of those we needed to get everybody out. We'd have to make multiple trips, and whoever got left behind would be that much more vulnerable. Why, you have a new idea?"

"Look, you might have some more vehicles to work with. My ship's sending two remote control light shuttles here. They should be arriving in five minutes or so on the roof landing pad. You might want to start thinking about how we're organizing an evacuation out of here."

Maes was rather skeptical. "They're FLYING in? Lady, that's suicide in the storm outside!"

"Ah, we came with some corporate equipment; our ships should be able to make the trip with their special programming."

Nanami was more correct than she knew.

The _Beagle's_ matched pair of small boats were NOT the four-seater L-6 Lindberghs originally specified for carriage aboard Firefly-series FTL light freighters, but were in fact look-alike Raven Aerospace UD-81s, six-seat military spec light dropships. The UD-81s were officially a not-well-talked-about market flop for Raven, that largely appeared in the books only as uninformative descriptions that offered little of interest, but that was of little concern to Raven, since the UD-81 had unofficially been designed with corporate ops in mind, and OFF the books the UD-81 had done quite well. Small, agile, well armored, very reliable, and they happened to fit most inconspicuously in the boat slips of a number of common transport ships. They proved quite popular with those who knew who to ask, and what moneys to drop in the right hands.

Being built to military specifications for deploying small covert ops teams meant that the ships couldn't be hampered by the same environmental concerns as would ground civilian craft. In fact, deployments DURING bad weather were preferred, as age-old habits tended to keep human heads down during inclement conditions, and degrade alertness to incoming threats.

Add to that the fact that the UD-81s were being piloted by stripped-down downloaded AI subsets that had been amalgamated with the control algorithms for a late-generation high speed RPV all-weather surveillance platform that the _Beagle's_ AI had snagged, decrypted, and decompressed from a supposedly secure corporate tachyon transmission.

Really; somebody at Militech deserved to be terminated for sloppiness of that sort, sending product software via tachycomm, rather than secured courier. One never knew who or what was listening to the corporate chatter.

In short, the two shuttles vectoring in on the hospital weren't going to be stopped by anything short of Jovian Red Spot eyewall-velocity winds.

Multi-spectral Lidar speared out, adjusted its light frequencies to compensate for the rain, microwave radar scanned and beamed out, the returns compared to street maps downloaded in port, GPS readings, and scans taken during the _Beagle's_ landing approach, superimposed a second-to-second three-dimensional mapping of weather conditions, including patches of clear air turbulence, and plotted an optimal course for the hospital. As one, the two shuttles banked and weaved, the air turbulence from their passage already factored in, the two ships alternately riding in each other's slipstream wakes like porpoises sharing their bow waves.

The military had wanted dropships that could come down anywhere, any when. Carthy had just wanted to get places without spilling his martini. The _Beagle's_ AI just liked the idea of having all that capability at its disposal in case opportunity presented itself.

The young female guard on the hospital roof nervously peered into the darkness surrounding the hospital. Streetlights still burned, and a few lights still gleamed in the distance in town, so automatic power was still flowing, but even she could tell the town looked lifeless...lifeless and menacing. Then sections of town had winked out, and she could hear distant gunfire, seeing flares and flames in the distance. Even more afraid, she'd hunkered down next to what cover was afforded by the bulk of the landed BTR-60 and the utilities structures on the roof, and even then she was constantly looking around to make sure she had line of sight on her fellow guards there.

She wasn't a soldier, or even a Security mook. Just a garage mechanic at the Hospital who took the weekend warrior courses in Security for the extra money she could make doing Security rotations at the hospital, a place she worked anyway.

The brand-new assault rifle in her hands had bolstered her morale somewhat, but not much. She had no illusions that it would instantly transform her into 'Captain McReady of the CMC' from the holodramas, able to blow away entire Bug infestations single-handed. If anything, once she realized how to work the big multi-sensor scope atop the gun, her fears had gotten worse. Creeping to the edge of the roof to peer over the edge, she'd scanned the grounds around the hospital, and had almost lost her composure at seeing the crawling, slinking, alien shapes darting and prowling through areas she'd come to know as parking lots and parkland.

Fighting a shiver that had nothing to do with the rain-soaked chill of the night, the young guard almost missed the red spot that briefly flicked over her.

When she did, she almost freaked. She'd heard of the Predator sighting beams- 'death lights' the media liked to call them- and what happened to those caught by them. She was about to scream out a warning when it whisked away from her.

Then, as she watched, two more red spots appeared in the distance on the large rooftop, and then converged on each other at a point off-center on the landing pad. A ring of smaller lights then appeared around the merged red spot, narrowed, then vanished.

The security guard looked up in openmouthed disbelief as, though the driving rain and howling wind, two shark-shapes with fully swept wings appeared in close formation out of the overcast and came down for a precision landing next to her.

Nanami, who could indeed read the feeling of suspicion in the mind of the man in front of her, if not the actual details of those suspicions, could tell he was still skeptical in light of her latest offered explanation. She was bracing herself for another doubting inquiry when their personal comms both went off simultaneously.

Hughes turned around to answer his, and Nanami used the opportunity to reach for hers. She hoped it was good news; Ranma, stupid brave dumb-stud, had suddenly gone into a panic mode she had never felt before...not immediate life-or-death threat, but a combination of guilt and resigned fatalism...and of COURSE he wasn't offering any explanation for it. And why did she get an image of giant hammers?

"Nanami here. What is it?"

The distinctive sound of the _Beagle's_ computer came over the commlink. "Captain, Shuttle One and Shuttle Two have made successful arrival and landing at your general coordinates. They are atop the hospital roof awaiting your orders."

"-There's two WHAT on the WHERE?"

Nanami glanced over at Hughes' outburst, then returned her attention to the comm. taking note of the time. "Heh, five minutes elapsed time. You're fifteen seconds early. Good job."

"This unit aims to achieve satisfaction."

Back aboard the _Beagle_ , the AI wasted a few electrons on a quiet chuckle. The 'Scotty Protocols' of padding time estimates had worked in its favor again.

Maes closed his comm and turned back to Miss Jinnai.

"It seems I own you an apology, Miss. Shall we go up and see your shuttles?"

"What the HELL is going on out there?!"

Chief Cho told himself he'd quit saying that; he knew damn well what the hell the was going on already, he was losing people and control of the city, he just didn't know the exact DETAILS. However, on the list of vices, major and minor, he could be engaging in right now, repeatedly swearing about not knowing those details was way down in order of severity, helped blow off some of the considerable stress he was under, and thus was perfectly excusable.

Cho looked around his new command center inside the aerospace traffic control building, and the jury-rigged situational flat-screens hung on the walls. He'd have preferred to have been up in the control tower, but the Hunters had quickly twigged to that being the most likely location for any organized Human resistance effort(and thus the most likely place to find the sort of high-ranking humans that the Hunters preferred as trophies, according to what was known of their twisted psychology). Even with the heavy storm shutters drawn over the tower's large windows, Security hadn't wanted to chance the Hunters blasting through.

Actually, Cho was kind of surprised that the Hunters weren't STILL blasting the tower; despite their losses thus far, Security seemed to have done a good job of securing the spaceport and keeping the Predators at bay...thus far.

Still, that did little to smooth out the confusion that was rolling through the command center.

"-reports of some of the two-nineties going apeshit downtown! Lost Patrol five-si-"

"-ontact's still intermittent with the hospital! Big bug swarm gatherin-"

"Big explosions over the refinery. Observer can't tell if it was a boobytrap or Pred activity-"

"Damnit! Lost contact with Renn and Stimpy! They were supposed to be-"

"Get a machine gun up on top of Building Seven! You know the damned plan! Follow it! What? You think you see Preds? Well, hit the damn things! You stil got the APC, right?"

"Reports of shots in Eleven District! Thing is, we don't have anybody over there!"

"Yeah, we confirm, we got two shuttles leaving the spaceport! Destination unknown; they didn't check in with air traffic control!"

Cho turned at that last report. "What the HELL is going o-never mind. I thought we made it clear nobody leaves the spaceport without authorization!"

"Sir! We couldn't be sure about it! But it definitely seems like one of the ships in port launched two small craft into the soup out there!"

Small craft, huh? FROM one of the ships? Somebody pulling a Plunder and running? No, they'd have taken the whole ship, unless they were just blindly panicking. "Get me somebody out there on the pads!"

"Will do, sir! Ah, looks like we already got somebody calling in!"

"Good, patch them through!"*CLICK* "Chief Cho here."

 _#"-Fury here! I've been trying to get through for the past five minutes! I-"#_

"Never mind that! What's the situation?!"

 _#"-I've found us a tach-comm!"#_

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"

 _#"I said, sir, one of the ships, the most recent arrival, it looks to have a fully functioning tach-comm rig!"#_

"Fury, have you secured it yet?" A sudden spike of hope shot up through Cho's spine.

 _#"Ah, that's the problem, Chief! I tried to get access to it, but it's packing some sort of high-class corporate automated defense system! Almost blasted us when we tried to get in! Then the ship launched its small craft, and I dunno what-"#_

"Hold it, isn't there anybody aboard that ship? Can't you get the crew to give you access to the ship?!" If somebody aboard that ship was holding out on them, making his peoples' job harder, and endangering everybody's lives out of sheer stubborn stupidity, he'd-

 _#"Lieutenant Mustang spoke to them earlier, and dragooned one of them for his sweep of the 'port. Some sort of jacked-up corporate bodyguard type, real flash operator, from Mustang's description. He's the only one I know we can currently get ahold of right now."#_

"Hold him there if he isn't going to cooperate! I'm on my way!"

 _#"Ah, well, that ain't going to be a problem, sir! The problem's going to be getting him away from one of the townspeople."#_

"Huh? What do you mean?"

*WUNCH*

" _WHERE'S MY LITTLE GIRLS, JACKASS!?"_

Reinforced Hybrid physique and remembered martial arts training not withstanding, Ranma was certain he felt his eyeballs jangle in their sockets as he was slammed up against the wall. He also had to check to make sure his feet were still on the ground and not dangling a few inches above the deck. The pressure the small, feminine, and definitely STRONG hand and arm pistoned against his sternum felt strong enough to lift the martial artist clean off the ground.

Once his eyes stopped spinning, he looked down the length of arm holding him against the wall, into the furious eyes of the woman who'd introduced herself as Izumi Curtiss before she'd hauled off on him, and saw nothing short of full disclosure would suffice to get him off the hook.

Problem is, full disclosure would probably land him, and the girls, on the spikes.

Whoever this Izumi Curtiss was, she was DAMN fast and DAMN strong, and something about her had caught him offguard. Oddly enough, as she'd grabbed him and started shaking him for answers, he'd found himself reminded of Akane's fury, Ukyo's businesswoman anger, and Kasumi's stern disapproval...and how much it HURT on those occasions when all three converged.

A quick glance at the gathered cops behind the woman told him there was no rescue there. Mustang seemed to looking on with tightlipped approval, and taking notes. The new guys, Havoc and Fury, well, the former was looking on in bemused interest, and the other was talking on some sort of communicator.

 _Yep. Never a policeman when you really need one. Damn it!_

"I -KNOW- you were the last ones seen with my girls, Celes and Winry! Now you're going to tell me what happened to them and you're going to come with me and open up that damn ship of yours and we're going to see for ourselves what you're hiding aboard that thing, you corporate rat scoundrel! But you're going to start with telling me where my girls are!"

Had to admire her courage, Ranma admitted, here he is armed and armored, combat-trained, and primed for survival, and she's not only standing up to him, she's whipping his ass. And he can't do a thing about it short of blowing any sort of cover he's still got going.

 _Let's see; already admitted to being a bodyguard, some sort of supersoldier. Maybe admit to being a mutant? No, she's going to want to know what happened to her girls, and if I admit to being a mutant, she's probably going to think I ate them! Admit I saw them? She's still going to want to go aboard the ship! Admit the last time I saw the Winry girl, she was hurt and we took her aboard to sleep off her injuries? That will get me in worse! Blow my cover completely and make a run for the ship? Oh genius, 'Dachi-chan and Nanami are still out there! Shit! Shit! Shit!_

"I'm waiting for an answer here-"

"Well, see-"

"No, I don't see! Answer the damn question!"

*BEEP*

The sound of the communicator clipped inside Ranma's beat-up body armor sounded kind of pathetic against the howl of nature's fury outside and the human fury(Izumi's fury; Officer Fury was still on the line to Cho) closer at hand, but to Ranma it sounded like heavenly trumpets promising at least a temporary respite from this unexpected confrontation.

"Ah, excuse me. Gotta answer this!"

Izumi looked cross, but didn't interfere as he reached for the commlink. She didn't let go of her grip on him, though.

*CLICK*"Ranma here."

The mechanical dulcet tones of the _Beagle's_ computer came through. _#"Master Ranma? Relaying message through from Captain Nanami. Compensating for atmospheric interference."#_

"Okay, go ahead."

 _#"-nami here! You heari/-/g me, stud?"#_

"I can hear you, Nanami. What's up?"

 _#"Go- know you're in a spot o/-/ trouble ri/-/ now, but we found Vic/-/. We're at the local hos/-/ holed up. Hostiles all around."#_

Izumi's eyes glinted at what she just heard. Her grip tightened on Ranma's shirt.

 _#""Liste/-/up. -Beagle's- shuttles just arrived he/-/ We're going to start evacuat/-/ by air as many as we safely can. We're loading/-/ as many as we can but the ship's a/eeeee/ tells me with full load it will take ten minutes to ge/-/. We're sending the chil/-/ first. Tell the folks there to be ready when they come in. We don't want any friendly fir/-/ happening. You got that? You good?"#_

"Yeah, 'Nami, I'm good. I'll tell 'em to be ready on this end."

 _#"Good boy! Hope to se/-/ soon. Love yah. Captain Nanami out."#_

Ranma glanced up from the commlink, relief filling him. At least he had the vague mists of a plan now, a distraction if nothing else.

"Ah, Officer Mustang?"

The cop cocked an eyebrow at the voluntary calling of his name.

"I dunno if you heard that, but that was my, ah, partner, Nanami, calling from I think was the local hospital. She has our ship's shuttles there and she's called to let you know they're going to try to evacuate the people there to here. Sez the first group's going to come in about ten-fifteen minutes. Bunch of kiddies first, I think she said. You might wanna be ready so nobody shoots them down, okay?"

"I'll pass the word. But I'm going to want to know why and how they left the spaceport when I told you and them we weren't letting anybody out."

Ranma looked at Izumi, who still hadn't let go of him. "Ah, they went looking for that girl Victoria when she went missing. Uhm, something about a delivery? Guess they found her though. But we gotta get ready for the refugees! Come on!"

 _Yep, let's get in motion, buy some more time! Maybe you won't be so eager to go poking around if you got something else to look forward to! That's the plan!_

The guy whose name Ranma heard was 'Fury' stepped forward. "We're still going to need access to your ship and its communications rig, mister. Roy? Chief Cho's on his way over to oversee this!"

Seeing the shifting of attention back to him, Ranma mentally groaned. _Okay, it wasn't a brilliant plan, and it wasn't a very long-lived plan. So much for a save!_

"Okay, okay, we can get maybe twenty people in a shuttle for a short ferry trip! Kids and mothers are going first, but after that, we're going to figure who goes next. Doctor Winchester? Your recommendations?"

Hughes cut in; "Twenty people in a six man shuttle? You sure that's safe?"

Nanami nodded her head at the older man's question. "Yes; we're only taking a short hop, not a transatmospheric lift. Ship's AI sez it can be done...it will take maybe twice as long, maybe longer having steer around turbulence, but it's safer than taking the roads. Doctor? After the kids, who goes next?""

"Critical care and immediate care providers. While I hate to take them off hospital systems and send away trained personnel if we have anybody staying here, the sooner we transfer core medical personnel to the spaceport, the sooner we can set up there with what's already been stockpiled at the 'port."

"Okay, and we're not going to get twenty people on the intensive care flights...at best maybe four people, or two and plenty of equipment. That's going to take extra flights, but it also means less vulnerable people around here to guard. Officer Hughes, you concur?"

Hughes might have his suspicions about this Jinnai woman and her companion who'd come in with Rally, but she seemed to have a level head on her shoulders and a talent for organization under pressure. She had a good point; move the vulnerable people out of the hospital and to the spaceport first, and they effectively became somebody else's problem for the time being. They could manage their remaining forces more effectively and plan their own breakout accordingly.

He just wished that he had more confidence in the means. Robotically-controlled shuttles in a howling windstorm, with trigger-happy Hunters out there in the darkness? Plus, under the evacuation schedule they were coming up with, among the 'vulnerables' that would be moved first would be Hughes' own wife and children. He wished he had other options, but knew he had damn few and none better. He'd have to take Miss Jinnai's word that the hardware she brought to the table(and that raised a few more questions to his copper's mind about her and her friends) was as good as she said it was. His own quick inspection of the two ship's boats currently parked on the roof showed to his trained eye that she was telling the truth at least with regards to physical quality; the twin shuttles smacked of the sort of quasi-legal military-spec luxurious paranoia practiced by high-rank corporates. He'd just have to trust what she said about the quality of the controlling software.

"I concur. Get the kids ready to go. Doctor; start prepping your ICU patients to move when the ships are available. I'll brief Loa on the situation. "

Doctor Winchester nodded, and the small planning group broke up, the doctors to the medical wards to start reshuffling staff and patients, Hughes to find his deputized second-in-command, and Nanami to find Kodachi.

"' _Dachi?"_

" _Yes, Nanami-chan?"_

Nanami mentally blinked at the virtual purr and term of affection in the other Hybrid woman's thought; but reconsidered, remembering how the girl had been almost dragging Nanami into a threesome with Ranma-stud. The scientist in her made another note to the paper-in-progress _Bisexuality Group Dynamics in the Xeno-Human Hybrid Social Group."Kodachi, we're moving ahead with the evacuation, starting with the maternity wards and children first. I'd like to get you aboard one of those shuttles back to the spaceport."_

" _Nanami-chan, I am not averse to rejoining Ranma-kun again, but wouldn't that leave you short protection? You are making progress in your martial arts training, and I am impressed with Rally and Cele's skills with weapons, but none of you are particularly adept in hand to hand combat. Guns will be of little use if the hospital is stormed._

The accompanying mental picture Kodachi let slip of Bugs in the halls and ventilation system of the hospital made Nanami shiver.

" _Please, Kodachi, I have enough nightmares. Yeah, Rally and Celes don't know me well, and I'd like to have you watching my back, but Ranma-stud will need a level head to help him at the spaceport, and I'd like to have somebody mature to help him. You know better than me how much trouble men, and Ranma-stud in particular, can get into on their own."_

Another mental image or montage of them giving an impression of a younger Kodachi laughing maniacally as people shattered away from her, along with a self-depreciatng chuckle from older Kodachi; _"You flatter me, but your proposal has merit."_

" _Besides, if the situation gets really bad, you can send Ranma-stud back on one of the shuttles to back us up."_

" _And if the ships can't fly?"_

" _We'll blow up that bridge when we get to it, but I expect some sort of rescue effort, 'Dachi."_

" _Oh yes, Ranma-kun is very much the heroic type to come to the rescue! That is one of his (many) endearing virtues."_

" _Good. We can discuss the merits of Ranma-stud later. For now, get all the rugrats ready for a ride in a shuttlecraft."_

"Well, you going to let us in?"

Ranma was grateful for the windborne rain still lashing in past the eaves of the bus-stop-like structure; it hid his nervous sweat. He looked at the gathered group around him; the police officers looking at him with either desperate hope or studied suspicion, the woman glaring at him with barely restrained fury, the few locals with curiosity, and what was with that big hulking guy lurking in the shadows behind the woman? Under any other circumstances, the Saotome Secret Technique(bolt and run until you can think of something better) would already been enacted; that option was still on the table and looking increasingly good.

"Mustang, this the guy?"

That was when the option was taken off the table by the arrival of another larger group of men entered the observation shed. They were all heavily armed and armored and moved warily, watching the shadows. Here and there, a chipped or burnt section of armor, or a bandaged arm told of recent action. Their arrival effectively cut off Ranma's line of retreat, unless he planned on going out a window or through a wall.

At the center of the squad of men had come plowing with determined stride an older man in the uniform and body armor favored by the local cops. Short and stout, with a muscular build that reminded Ranma somewhat of Ryouga Hibiki (kami rest his old buddy's soul!) had he ever gotten old, with a weathered face framed by a scrubby beard and receding gray hair that looked somewhat like that American actor...what was his name...yeah, Pat Morita. Ranma had thought those 'Karate Kid' movies were a joke, especially with the dubbing, but this guy didn't look like he'd appreciate the humor. The way the man moved with a conservation of motion told of either advanced training, hard experience, or both, and the manner he held a very nasty-looking firearm by his side said this guy was no actor and no diplomat. It all said to Ranma: _Do not fuck with me, understand?_

Naturally, with Mustang's nodded conformation this guy's gaze immediately zeroed in on Ranma. As tired as the newcomer looked, Ranma could feel a focusing of attention that approached the Soul of Ice for intensity.

"My name is Cho. Chief Cho. I understand you're the one with a tachyon comm rig in your ship?"

"Ah, I'm one of the ones, yeah!" Ranma hadn't known much about the technical details of the _-Beagle-_ aside from general capabilities and what not to touch, but he thought Nanami had mentioned something about a really good communications system on the ship. "Yeah, but I don't know what you'd want with it? Don't you have better on this planet?"

From where he stood next to Mustang, Fury snorted a choked laugh.

"We USED to. Now we don't!"

Cho growled. "We need to send a call for help ASAP. We need your rig to do it."

"We'd love to help, bu-"

"This colony's under martial law. I can ORDER you to cooperate and have you bring down your ship's security. However, I get the idea that trying to force you to do anything will likely result in us still being stuck on the wrong side of your ship's paranoid security system, and the situation a whole helluva lot messier-"

Ranma, who had been tensing for a fight-and-flee if the guns started pointing at him, relaxed a little-

"-so I'm going to appeal to your sense of duty and responsibility. The lives of everybody in the colony depends on your cooperation."

Ranma tensed up again as the man's words struck a chord deep inside him; _The Martial Artist's Credo: Defend Those Who Cannot Defend Themselves._

"That includes you and your friends. Now, I don't know what business Mustang thinks you're in, or what business you're really in-Frankly I don't care. You got the means to get help for several thousand people who are at the mercy of the Bugs and the Hunters out there. We need it, and we need it bad if we're to survive more than a few weeks. So I don't care if you're pirates, corporate black-ops, terrorists, whatever. WE NEED THAT COMM!"

Ranma would have cheerfully opened up the ship right then in there, held the door for them as they went in, and let the guys send for help, as long as they left him and his girls alone; he could tell things were desperate. But there was a cocoon aboard ship that somebody might find, and there were a lot of scared people with guns, and a tendency to blast, with good reason, anything that looked suspicious around here. Protection of the innocent also included himself, his girls, and whoever else they'd added, intentionally or accidentally, to their fold.

Ranma knew he had to stall for time, but fast-talking was not his forte(as much as he'd observed Nabiki Tendo in hopes that she was a practitioner of some sort of Tendo Martial Arts Smooth Talking), and there was an increasing number of people around him who were inclined to cut through bullshit with automatic weapons and flame-throwers. Nanami and Kodachi were still on the wrong side of town, the ship still needed repairs, and damn it, Cho was right; they all needed help!

But why did it all have to be right NOW?

Then, in the depths of despair, a miracle occurred.

Ranma felt it from inside the ship.

It felt like a flower opening up in his mind, petals unfolding to reveal their inner colors. A vague fuzziness snapped into clarity. Sensations flooded into parts of his mind as the latest arrival made her presence known to the mental network. It was glorious.

Ranma felt the young female mind entering the Party Line, giving an impression of yawning as she did so. A sense of wonder, exhilaration, and then a growing sense of curiosity came radiating from point somewhere inside the distant ship.

Ranma quickly sent a mental message to Nanami, knowing she was better at this than he was: _"She's awake!"_

The reply came back just as quickly: _"Yeah, we know. About time you started talking to me, stud!"_

 _Ah, I got the Chief of the police on my back wanting access to the ship's communications. Seems whatever they got to send for help isn't working, but they figured out we might have something! They want in, bad!_

Nanami apparently had to chew on that for a moment. "Their FTL comm's down? Oh, that's bad! I'd assumed they'd already sent for help!"

" _Well, I get the impression somebody did them some dirt before they could send for help. They're pretty insistent that I let them on the ship. Now."_

" _I can understand why, but we can relay any message if they give it to us. I wasn't planning on immediately coming over, but I can get a place on one of our evac shuttles-"_

" _I don't think that's going to go over well, Nanami, even if you come here. They want to get at the comm-rig. Oh, and there's some woman here who thinks I had something to do with the disappearance of her kids, and she'd ready to use me as a battering ram to get aboard the ship for a look-see."_ Ranma sent a mental impression of Izumi as she was ready to tear a stripe off him.

 _(mental chuckle at the image) "You know how to pick them, don't you, stud? Lemme check something."_

Ranma got the impression of Nanami making a mental comment to the side, getting an abrupt acid reply, then after some more moments of conferring, Ranma felt the first new girl chuckling, and he got the impression it was at his expense.

Nanami broke back in. _"Okay, Celes confirms that's her and Winry's den-mother, Real firebrand."_

" _Oh goodie! Does she say anything about getting this maniac off my back?"_

There was an impression of a two mental snorts before Nanami answered him again. _"Don't call her a maniac. Celes doesn't know you as well as Kodachi and I do. But no, she's going to want to see both Celes and Winry soonest. Now that Winry's awake, though, that does cut us some slack if we play it right. "_

Ranma mentally groaned. _"The only time we've played right it and it hasn't exploded in my face later was when Kodachi and I did the Swinging Monkey posit-"_

" _-Save it for later! Especially the part with the lemons! I'll talk to Winry. So will Celes. Aside from the damage to the ship, we should be able to get her up to speed and put some sort of a story together, so it's safe to bring people aboard. You might wanna take your time strolling back, however."_

" _Rightttttttt."_

" _Winry?"_

" _Celes? Heeeeeyyy...how you doing?"_

" _Trapped at the hospital by Bugs and Hunters, trying to hide from people who might just try to kill me if they knew what I was. Oh, and welcome to Club Freak...Rally's one of us now too!"_

" _Oh Celes, it's not that bad! I feel GREAT! Never felt better! And what they got around here-"_

" _Look, Winry? That ship you're on? Company's coming! Get your head out of the clouds and pull yourself together! They can't find out what we are now! There's some news, though, you CAN make yourself look like your old self if you just think about it!"_

" _But I WANT bigger boobs-"_

 _(Scandalized)"WINRY!"_

" _Okay, okay."_

" _Okay, you good?"_

" _Yes, I'm good."_

" _Great. Otherwise the High Bitch here-(sorry, Rally! I'm still not used to her and what she did!)-will lecture you! Just hold on there, and we'll be there soon as we can, and as soon as I figure on bringing the Rustbucket along!"_

" _Don't you DARE leave my car behind."_

 _(chuckle)"YOUR car? I paid for at least half of it! Okay, you got company coming-"_

" _I'm good! I'm good! Say, this is kinda neat, talking to you like this, ain't it? Heeeyyy...you know what they got on this thing? I can't be sure, but I think those are conduits for an RDA-Yoyodyne Schauzzer Electromagnetic Induction Polarized Barr-"_

 _(groan)"-I'll see you when I can."_

" _Okay, stud, Winry's good at her end...or at least Celes thinks so. Remember what else we talked about when you let them aboard."_

Ranma breathed a sigh of relief as they neared the _-Beagle's-_ ship pit. It was a rather large little party, and well armed too, eyes and weapons constantly twitching to cover suspicious shadows and rooftops whenever they had to pass in the open. Ranma might have even felt safe, if not for the fact that some of those weapons might be aiming at him sooner or later.

Soon enough, though, they were in front of the ship, a dark outline barely illuminated by its external lights, its contours changed somewhat from what Ranma remembered, doubtless due to the absence of the two shuttlecraft normally docked atop it.

Oh, yeah, and the presence of the large CANNON now sprouting from one side.

Remembering what happened LAST time, Fury faltered in his stride and dropped back a pace, eyeing where he'd previously taken shelter. Cho, Mustang, and Izumi on the other hand didn't seem to notice, one feeling under the threat of bigger things already, the next having had one ship fire on him already in the last day or so, and the last too determined to get some answers to really care.

Ranma approached the ship, then stopped as targeting red spots whisked up and down, then stopped on the men next to him. Several weapons of varying size emerged from housings on the ship and pointed in their general direction.

The techno-dulcet of the ship's computer rang out over the tarmac: #"Hello, MIster Saotome. Welcome back."#

"Ah, hello, computer."

#"Do you wish to come aboard? I detect that you are in the presence of a large body of armed strangers. Several individuals among them have already tried to gain access to this ship. "# The AI twitched a laser turret meaningfully at the small group behind Ranma. Some of the less hardened officers started looking for cover at the action.

"Yeah, I'd like to come aboard, and these people would like to come aboard too!"

#"Am I to understand they are guests?"#

"Ah, yes!"

#"Are you under duress?"#

"Huh?"

#"Are you being forced into this? I detect an elevated state of biometrics activity on your part, Mister Saotome. Are you under threat? If so, I can tell with it accordingly."#

"Ahhh...it's not like that at all! We're...we're all under threat! These people just want to use the ship's comms to send for help! Just let them aboard...um, under my authorization! They're good! Really!"

#"Under current threat conditions I must maintain high alert. Very well, your guests may come aboard, sir, but should they pose a threat to you or this vessel, this system will react accordingly. Again, welcome back."#

The guns either retracted or swiveled away. The main hatch opened, and more than a few of the assembled officers breathed a sigh of relief they didn't realize they'd been holding.

"Nice security system you got there." Cho grumbled with a sidelong look beside Ranma. "How much did it set you back?"

"It was part of my retirement package."

"Retirement from-what-?"

"Being somebody else's lab rat."

Cho looked like he wanted to ask clarification on that, saw the look on the young man's face, and thought better of it, instead nodding as Saotome led the way inside the ship.

Just outside the range of the sensors and gun mounts the _oomans_ had set up, the Elder grimaced as he watched through his helmet's optics as the small, well-armed group went aboard the spacecraft.

That group had several high-value prey in it; a target-rich situation worthy of Blooded Hunters in both the risk and prestige to be had in attempting it.

Seeing the group moving along the roofed windbreaks and causeways of the spaceport complex, he'd been tempted to order a raid on them, if only to have the Unbloodeds provide distraction while he and the relative handful of veteran Bloodeds took worthy heads and got answers. Instead he's held off, and had been rather surprised that no youngsters full of spit and fire hadn't jumped in anyway.

Now the targets, and one target in particular, had gone to ground under the cover of yet another layer of the monkeys' automated weapons. From what he could see, charging in blindly against the many guns festooning that previously harmless-looking craft would only result in many more Yautja deaths. A clever trap indeed, and one still very effective, for all that it was revealed now.

He'd have to wait longer before he could get some answers. Time he could be spending claiming trophies.

"Ah-Ha!"

They'd passed through the personnel lock, and Mustang had again noted the damage to it, but it was when Izumi had peered into the cargo bay and sighted Winry's market-scooter that she had turned an accusing eye on Ranma.

Ranma just ignored the woman as best he could, as the group trouped up to the upper decks where the communications gear was. He was really glad he'd hosed down the decks of blood and gore and used that fancy air freshener he'd found in a ship's locker.

If any of the others noticed the damage or anything else suspicious, they gave no sign. Frankly, it was only their unfamiliarity with the ship that kept some of them from dashing ahead to find the coveted tachycomm; Fury was almost bristling with impatience and frustration as Ranma led them to the upper deck. Ranma was certain the man would have already raced up the stairs and kicked down the door to the ship's office were it not for the fact that the cop didn't know if there were any other 'security measures' that Ranma might be needed to disable. So everyone duly followed his lead as they filed into the ship's lounge-

-only to stop abruptly as they all took in what was there.

Suddenly aware of company, Winry Rockabell stood up and turned around from whatever it was she had been intently inspecting. Seeing the gaping expressions on the small crowd of people standing in the door, she looked around for a moment, then down at herself.

"Oops...guess I got a little distracted?"

Afura just had to shrug. Sure Shayla-Shayla had to be off her rocker a bit this was nice. The great thing about fishing worlds was they usually had really nice beaches. While Shayla was getting her head shrunk and her blood tested she was in a tiny little two piece soaking in some nice sun from the local star. As the researcher soaked in some much needed sun she sipped her drink enjoying the alcohol.

Shayla was not a happy camper. Afura was honest and had taken them to a nearby settlement in the direction she told her. They bought enough supplies to replace their potentially contaminated food but she knew she was just loving the opportunity to sit in the sun and enjoy the warm sea breeze, "Youch!" The doctor gave her a scowl, "It's a tiny needle now hold still."

"I am not on drugs." Shayla-Shayla proclaimed once more.

The young medic didn't even give her eye contact this time. He noted the black eye liner and nail polish in his report, "We're just checking for a chemical imbalance to make sure you're not lapsing into space dementia."

She twitched slightly under the disposable hospital gown. Afura was going to get it. Fatora was going to suffer. Alielle, Alielle was going to die in a way that would make a chest burster seem humane. All this because she those crazy nymphos decided to spike the food... probably. What was wrong with a little black eye liner any way it definitely gave her eyes a sexy look.

Afura's personal assistant chimed. She lazily plucked up the device knowing it was far to early to roll over again. She scowled at the little device as an alert scrolled across the screen, "New message from Masamichi Fujisawa."

She really considered just hitting the delete button on the message from her former teacher. This week was heading to the toilet faster than a freshman at a kegger. The timing of this message just reeked of more troublesome news. She took another sip from her saltless margarita and giggled the old drunk probably would have loved to be here. Her eyes strained to read the lengthy message in the midday sun, "Afura, Nanami contacted me. If she sent you a large encrypted file please forward it to myself and Professor Xavier. Her contact information and last know location is as follows."

The message went on a bit longer but there was only one thing she could think. The normally refined researcher cursed, "Ah hell... Shayla is going to go ape shit."

Afura shook her head. She really didn't have anything against the younger Jinnai in fact most days she was a good friend. However, get on the wrong side of her and a money making scheme and there was hell to pay. Part of Afura wanted to cry she worked so hard to get that research position on the outer rim. Shayla and Nanami were going to screw this up for her. A small grin crossed her face. Then again it wasn't the greatest job. As the irresponsible twenty-something part of her reared it's head she knew what ever trouble she and Shayla were headed towards it was going to be interesting, probably fun and most likely get her tossed in jail for a few days. She leaned back and took another sip of her drink. Her hand knocked her sunglasses back into place as she closed her eyes again. She mused, "Shayla should be at least another twenty minutes before the docs get done with her."

In the hospital said red head was just about ready to brain an intern as they comment on elevated endorphins. As they brought out another set of needles she decided she had enough. An icy voice stated, "You have enough samples."

The young doctor considered for a moment then put down the tray. He motioned to an orderly just outside of the room who came in quietly adding his presence to the doctor's authority. Shayla cracked a smile as she rolled her neck. Perhaps a good fight was what she need to clear her head.

On the beach Afura felt a familiar ripple of chi and looked at her personal assistant. Tacking on another hour to the timer she let out a contented murmur. She quietly decided to add another twenty minutes to the as she further deliberated on the situation. She set the PDA aside and ordered another drink. She casually adjusted her bikini to put her tan line a bit higher and lower and gave a sultry smile to a local jogging across the beach.

On another planet a very tired bounty hunter looked at the newest complication in her life and just shook her head. She really just wanted to find a nice warm bed to crawl into and sleep for about a week. She heard her ring tone go off and realized that it was just one more complication added to her life. Rally Vincent had left her phone at the civil defense air field. She whimpered a bit. She really hated loosing that little thing it was always such a pain to get them set up the way she liked. Rally sat down at an unused computer and punched up the local data net. The connection sputtered and moaned in between thunder strikes but eventually coughed the data from the local communication hub.

As the data crawled in she looked at her voice mail and cursed. Thirty something missed calls half of them from mudpie, two from Becky another five from Bandit. Rally paused what the hell could Bandit want. The last three calls were from Izumi. She already knew exactly what she wanted. Rally knew what ever Bandit wanted could wait but fifteen calls from her neighbor Trista was a bit much. As the public machine dialed the number Rally tried to relax in the uncomfortable office chair.

A frantic voice answered the crackling line, "Hello!"

"Trista it's Rally, whats going on." Rally asked in a calm tone. She really didn't know what to expect.

The voice practically squealed, "Oh my god Rally you're alive. You weren't picking up your phone and I'd thought something bad happened."

"Oh, I'm fine. Phone got soaked." She really didn't know how to respond to the woman's excitement, "Are you some where safe?"

"Yep I did just like they told us in the civil defense meetings." The bubbly woman replied, "Something must be really wrong with the weather stabilizers I've been in the basement most of the day."

Rally's hand massaged her face slowly as she contemplated her response, "Ok Trista, stay in the basement with the munchkin. I'll be by soon to take you to the shelter."

"I really don't think thats necessary." The woman replied.

Grinding her teeth Rally nearly choked on her smile, "I'm sure you and the kid would be much more comfortable at the shelter and they have plenty of games to play here."

"Oh well I suppose if it isn't too much trouble." Trista replied as if it was only a minor inconvenience.

Straining to keep her smile Rally quickly replied as she hung up the phone, "Just stay in the basement till I get there. I'll let my self in."

Rally quashed the connection as she stood and gathered her rifle. She glanced at the door. Celes had heard enough of the conversation to know exactly what Rally was planning, "I'll..."

"Keys." Rally bluntly replied.

Celes blustered for a moment. She knew that look, "But."

"No buts." Rally looked a lot like Izumi as she closed the distance between the two of them, "You keep an eye on May. People do stupid things in times like these. Keep an eye on the wall flowers too."

The younger woman held out her keys with a nod as she felt Rally block off herself from the psychic link, "You shouldn't go alone."

"I don't have a lot of options here." Rally started back to the motor pool, "Make sure May is on one of the next transports. Go with her. Try to keep Izumi away from Kodachi and Nanami. I have a feeling that they really aren't used to keeping secretes much less fooling someone like Maes or Roy."

Celes stepped in front of her mentor and stated bluntly, "I'm not a little girl."

"And thats why you're looking after May and Winry. Don't let them put May in the make shift hospital at the port make sure she get's into Nanami's ship." Rally practically growled back, "And! Keep that Koeing with you. It'll be useless against the swarm but if another ED or hunter takes a shot at you, you'll be able to drop it. Without needing to worry about the armor." The gun runner looked over her protege one last time and plucked a pink and green grenade off of her statical vest, "Told you to stay out of May's stash."

Celes looked at the ordinary if colorful grenade, "I just."

Rally turned it over in her hand, "Careful when you throw this, might take out a few bugs might take out a city block."

The blond blinked several times as Rally tried to hand the grenade back to her, "Maybe you should hold onto that one."

"Alright." As the motor pool door slowly opened a male voice demanded, "What do you think you're doing."

Rally looked up to see one of the civilians armed with one of the Turcotte's she had brought back, "Helping people in deeper trouble than ourselves."

"Mr. Huges said to keep the doors shut." The younger man nervously yelled. His entire body screamed nervous and twitchy.

Walking to the beat up speeder Rally casually mocked, "Then close the door behind me."

He nervously looked at Celes who mocked him as well, "Shoot my car and I will shoot you."

The young intern felt very small suddenly as if the two women could kill him with a look, "I'll do that then."

As Rally cleared the garage door eased closed behind her.

"-and Miss Kodachi graciously let me look around! What an opportunity!"Winry explained in a rush, as she waved her free arm about at the ship she was in. "I guess I lost track of the time, crawling around inside this ship, checking it all out, because when I came out there was an alert, but it barely registered. Then I was so covered with grease and sweat, I HAD to take a shower...I mean, who would want to track muck through someplace THIS nic?...and, well, umh,...I'm really sorry I didn't call home? REALLY sorry? I didn't mean to get anybody worried!"

Standing in aforementioned nice place, i.e., the _Beagle's_ lounge, Officer Roy Mustang crooked an eyebrow at the explanation.

Izumi Curtiss, having satisfied herself that the towel she'd affixed about her sort-of-daughter, also crooked any eyebrow at the explanation.

Winry, hastily wrapped in aforementioned towel, but apparently not at all perturbed about being barely covered in a room full of strange men, in front of her mother-figure, stood off to one side in the room as Izumi looked her over. If anything, Winry was checking the men out with a teenager's eye...especially the dark-haired young man she remembered when Kodachi had brought her aboard. Her eyes traveled up and down his form, appreciating what they saw.

Ranma gulped at the long appraising look the newly-turned teenager was giving him. He knew what THAT meant. _Pleasure and pain._

Not that he didn't give the girl an appraising glance himself. _A bit young, but nice legs, cute smile...definite potential._

Unfortunately, Izumi just happened to turn around at that moment and catch that glance. She glared at Ranma and almost hissed at him.

Ranma sheepishly stepped back and almost raised his hands in surrender. _Don't want no trouble, lady!_

At least they seemed to have have bought Winrey's explanation, the one that Winrey and the other Hybrid girls apparently had hastily come up with. At least Ranma wasn't being shot at. Yet. Or bludgeoned with heavy blunt instruments. Or run at and through with sharp pointy instruments. That was something.

For their part, Chief Cho and the cops were ignoring the little family drama taking place in the lounge. Once they'd listened to a hasty delivery of the girl's story and were satisfied she hadn't been abused or coerced, the cops had turned to the original business they were here to take care of. Fury had run into the communications office, and with an exclamation of glee, had practically dove at the console he found there. The police technician was now all but melded to the tachycomm console, his hands flying across the keyboard, a look of intense concentration on his face, while Chief Cho looked over his shoulder. Several panels were lit with official-looking logos now.

Ranma detected a sense of what could almost be called relief from the men there; not a sense that any real progress had been made in alleviating some great problem or burden, but that they were doing SOMETHING in that direction. Like something had finally gone RIGHT for a change.

Ranma really hoped that signaled an upward trend, and that the trend was catching.

Across the room from Ranma, Izumi hovered near Winry, grateful to finally find her, but something kept her from backing down from her mental combat alert state. It wasn't just the whole siege situation, it was something else. Izumi accepted that Winry was unharmed, but she still wasn't buying the whole 'I got distracted, I'm such a gearhead, I forgot to tell everybody where I was' story. Winry might be easily distracted by shiny machinery, but she wouldn't just leave off work to go mooning over a new ship. Izumi had drilled a certain punctuality into her adopted kids. And while Izumi hadn't gotten a good long look at Winry's scooter down in this ship's hold, she thought she had seen what looked like bloodstains on the back of the seats. She'd have to check it out later.

And while she wasn't in the habit of ogling other women, she did have a good memory for identifying body form and language; be it for picking out the telltale bulge of a concealed weapon or the signs of a bioware augment.

And teenage girls don't increase over a bra-cup size overnight.

With a roar of thrusters, two shark-like shapes dropped out of the gray overcast that passed for morning, setting down on the tarmac next to the _Beagle's_ slip. Those militia and adhoc security guards not already watching on the walls, cautiously encircled the two landed craft, weapons ready. Word had spread of some sort of evacuation flight from the hospital, but what with everybody on edge, there was no telling what might happen next. Nobody was taking any chances.

So, it was with great relief that everybody watched as a hatch opened in the side of one of the shuttles and a sandy-haired woman in nurse's whites stuck her head out.

"Hey! Somebody give us a hand here? I got mothers and children here to get in out of the rain!"

With a rush, the surrounding cordon broke ranks and surged forward.

Within moments, small children were being handed out to eager helpers who passed the kids to cover from the elements. There was a moment and some delay for a moment as one of the officers present had to bellow for the process to stop while he passed a xenodetector over the incoming refugees, which caused some dissension, until he forcibly reminded them of what one implanted Bug could do. Then the process got underway again, with both convalescent and expectant mothers being carried out of the shuttles to join the children now being shepherded to warmth and relative safety inside one of the fortified port buildings.

Somehow, though, a tall dark-haired woman managed to slip gracefully and unseen past the armed men and women milling about on the tarmac and made her way towards the nearby starship.

"AHHAAHHHAHHAHHAHHH!"

On the other side of town Luten Plunder was having a field-day in his teleoperated ED290, gleefully stalking Hunters, Bugs, and other ED290s through the streets. Freed of the worries of maybe actually DYING, Plunder took advantage of the facts that he was safely in orbit heading for the far side of the planet and that he was in perfect contact with his remote controlled toy via satlink to indulge himself in the sort of high explosive violence that video gamers only dreamed of.

That Rally woman and her companion might have escaped, but really, where could they go? They and all the other trash on the planet could only scurry from one bolthole to another until their ammo and room ran out. He'd catch up with them later, provided the Bugs and Hunters didn't get them first.

In the meantime, Plunder indulged himself, as his charging ED290 bodyblocked through a residential bloc, smashing down walls, severing electrical wires and water pipes, starting fires, and generally doing mounting thousands of credits of damage and undoing what it had taken the Company months to set in place. Powerful robotic arms swept through walls, piledriving structural members, bending beams, and kicking out supports, doing damage without having to waste ammunition, with the gleeful abandon of a demented child wargod. Hey, Plunder was on holiday(at least until the Company showed up, bought his story, and assigned him a new peach), and it wasn't like he was actually going to have to pay any fees or penalties for destroying all this stuff, right? RIGHT?

As the residential bloc collapsed behind him, Plunder piloted his warmachine away, not worrying in the least if he'd destroyed somebody's shelter or maybe killed any hiding refugees in the structure.

Now, should he go after Bugs, Hunters, or a police 'bot? No point in making it any easier for the colonist-rats by weeding the xenos, but why make it any easier for the xenos either? Besides, active ED290s could do as much collateral damage as the xenos! And the colony was a wreck anyway!

 _#"-P'tagggh se'valk*eech!* tstenzectech poq'meneslth *GRUNT*fraq'pollth! Fraqqiun'grath*eecheee!*phosol'fith-!"#_

A human, had they been close enough to hear the above stream of hissed vocalizations, might not be able to understand their exact meaning, but they would definitely be able to pick up the anger underlying them, and probably guess (correctly) that it was likely a stream of some very potent profanity.

Indeed, however critical the Elder Hunters might be of the utterer's conduct in the Hunt, and disparaging of what the individual had learned during training, they'd be _amazed_ at the proficiency of the young Yautja in cursing, and would wonder where the youngster had picked it all up from.

Truth be, the young Yautja had good reason to curse, particularly the damn _oomans_ , and in particular those riding around in vehicles. Despite having achieved Blooded status in killing many of the HardMeat, the young Hunter knew in his bones(unbroken for the most part), his muscles(strained, pulled, and pounded), and his skin(bruised, abraded, and roadburned) the humiliation of being nearly rendered into roadkill.

Thankfully the damn _oomans_ had cast him free of their speeding craft, sending him hurtling down the road with enough rolling velocity to clear the swarms of HardMeat infesting the grounds around that one structure. None of the dark-shelled killers had come after him when he'd finally slowed, fetched up against the side of a building, managed to gather his wits about him, and quickly clamber to relative safety to take an assessment of his injuries and remaining equipment.

Though painful, his injuries were surprisingly minor, though he'd feel the physical ache for many day-cycles to come. Equipment-wise, he was more concerned; his harpoon gun was a loss, his variable-camouflage webbing was damaged beyond functionality, and he'd lost several of his belted weapons in his wild careen down that _ooman_ roadway.

A roll of thunder pealed outside, followed by a more sustained roaring. Some kind of air vehicle, doubtlessly _ooman_. He'd heard something come in earlier, then leave soon after. Now it seemed to be coming back.

Things seemed to be picking up outside.

The young Hunter glared out the window of the structure he was in, staring out into the damp gloom barely lit by wane emergency lighting in the streets below, the glow of the lights surrounding the _ooman_ 'hos'pytal' several blocks over, and the distant glow lent by several fires raging in the all-but-deserted community.

That's when he saw it.

The dark knife-headed silhouette that stuck out from behind a building corner. The Yautja-like dreadlocks covering the elongated head, the multiple mandibles on the jaw, the variegated integument, and the heavily muscled frame. Though distant, it was unmistakable...especially when it looked up and hissed, the infernal sound echoing throughout the artificial canyons of the _ooman_ community.

The young Yautja whirled back behind cover, his hearts pounding. While he was fairly certain the creature below had not seen him, why take unnecessary risk?

An Abomination. Clearly at least one of the other Unbloodeds had fallen, and paid the ultimate price for failure. Now one of those Things-That-Should-Not-Be was prowling this world, stalking both _ooman_ and Yautja alike.

There was great prestige in taking down an Abomination, but it was not the honor like that earned by taking down a Queen HardMeat or an imposing _ooman_. Destroying an Abomination was more an obligation, a sacred duty akin to an exorcism, a sad but necessary cleaning up of another's failures. It was a sober acknowledgment of the risks of the Great Hunt, and not a task undertaken lightly by the Yautja.

For a youngblood, taking on an Abomination was a true test of one's skills, and gained much notoriety among the younger Yautja. Succeed and you were honored for showing skill beyond your years. Fail and you merely illustrated the folly of youth and the importance of restraint. Still, many Unbloodeds and youngbloods aspired to claiming an Abomination kill; elders knew better.

With much of his gear damaged or outright destroyed, and his body feeling like it had been run through a grinder to make infants' meat-gruel, the young Hunter doubted he could take on the Abomination single-handed and expect to win. His only other option, then, was to inform the Hunt Elders and hope to be chosen to participate in the extermination effort.

Looking at the darkened wrist console that should have been displaying active operations, the Hunter knew that even that task would be a difficult undertaking. He'd have to go in person to find an Elder and alert them to the Abomination. Venturing out there, he might still encounter the monster.

Glory or discretion? His hot blood told him to go for the first, but combination of youthful uncertainty and recently tempered caution told him the latter was the better choice.

His senses watching every shadow, listening to every sound, the young Hunter made his choice...

They could sense the prey inside the structure, so close, so tantalizingly close. But the presence of the Other made them uncertain. The One Who Might Be a Queen, who had slain scouts with a touch. So instead they had stayed back.

They had watched with sightless senses as Others had come and gone, and cold-things-not-prey from the sky had arrived.

Then they had sensed that the things were leaving, with prey aboard. The Prey was escaping! Not all of the prey, but some. And if some could escape, then all of the prey might, and all would be lost.

But the drones sensed something else. The Other-Not-Them, the One Who Might Be a Queen, the One That Killed With a Touch, had gone with the escaping prey.

There were Others in there; they could sense them. Others like the One that had repulsed their first attack, but not quite. They could sense that these Others too had killed of the Hive, but they were weaker, the echoes of their kills less intimate. They lacked the power of the One That Might Be a Queen. They still raised uncertainty in the Hive-collective, but that uncertainty was being pushed aside by a certainty.

The prey was getting away.

Already the sky-things had returned again, and left again, with more of the prey aboard. They could sense more of the prey gathering in the upper reaches of the place they'd taken refuge. Even the simplistic, rapacious intelligence of the drones told them that such a gathering was in expectation of escape.

The One Who Might Be a Queen might return, but for the moment she was not here. There were still those Others, and there were the prey that killed at a distance, that would kill drones who strayed too close to the structure. But there was less uncertainty now. Losses could be withstood and endured if the prize was great enough.

The leaving of the next most powerful Other-Not-Them had decided the matter.

Another attempt would have to be made, and now.

There was movement among the drones encircling the hospital.

The circle began closing.

Nanami and Doctor Winchester were, for the moment, busy cataloging and selecting what specialized medical supplies were to be moved along on the evac flights. Perishables mostly, temperature-sensitive drugs to be moved in the shuttles' cold compartments to the refrigerators at the spaceport refuge.

The two had been going fairly nonstop for hours now, and the evac flights had only picked up the activity more. Doctor Winchester had only been able to catch a few winks of sleep in all that, kept going on bad coffee and sheer adrenaline for the most part, but he had sworn to stay away from more powerful stimulants, except as a very last resort. Miss Jinnai on the other hand seemed to keep going and going. He had to wonder, given what she'd revealed about herself-

Nanami glanced over from where she had been going through a carton of anti-inflammatories. "Go ahead, you can ask, Doctor."

"How do you know?"

"Because it's what I'd ask if I was in your position."

"What other changes did they make in you?"

"Increased stamina, increased endurance, hopped-up perceptions that have me jumping if I sense a cockroach walking across the floor behind the counter, insane healing factor, and if any disease pathogen could survive in my blood it would likely have to be graded as a Level Crimson plague."

"That's quite a list. Anything else?"

"A lady has to keep SOME secrets, Doctor." Nanami saw the look of worry pass over his face. "Don't worry; none of them are harmful to anybody else. I'm not about to break out on everybody."

 _Unless they threaten me and leave me no choice._ Nanami subvocalized.

Still seeing a healthy and weary skepticism in the man's look, Nanami found herself wanting to explain more; "Doctor, whatever was done to me, it's under control. And we came here just to stop, pick up some news and supplies, and move on. Nothing more, nothing less. Nobody would have known we were here, except that THAT happened all out there and got us stuck here. I assure you, though, we'll do our best to help out here, and not harm anybody if we can help it."

Doctor Winchester quirked an eyebrow as he packed up a canister of monoclonals. "'We'? Am I to assume then that your companions, aside from Miss Kuno, are also like you?"

"You can't go through what we all did and NOT be unchanged by it."

Doctor Winchester saw the grim look pass over her features and decided not to press the issue, instead returning to more immediate concerns. "The mothers and children are already off, and we've gotten the first shuttle loads of the criticals off. The next ones should be moving along ready for pick up. When will you be going?"

"When you folks decide to go. You still need every able-bodied medtech around until the patients are moved out. After than, it will just the security drawing in their perimeter-"

A sudden cold feeling swept through Nanami's soul at that moment.

Doctor Winchester saw Miss Jinnai's face suddenly go pale and her posture stiffened. "Nanami, what's wrong?!"

"Doctor, remember what I said about sensing cockroaches walking across floors? Get everybody moving to secure points away from the outside rooms! NOW!" Nanami whirled and ran from the room.

" _CELES!"_

Celes Victoria had been watching over the waxen, shallowly-breathing features of May, laying on her life support bed, looking fragile and doll-like, when she heard the yell rip through her mind.

" _CELES!"_

Celes was about to complain about certain meddlesome scientists screaming in people's mental ears when she also heard the chittering in her mind suddenly coming into the forefront. Sudden fear spiked in her and she instinctively moved into a defensive position over May's bed.

" _I hear them! Louder than before!"_

" _They're up to something! I think they're making their move now!"_

" _Why now?!"_

" _I think maybe they sense we've got a way out of here that doesn't involve going through them!"_

Celes began casting about with senses she hadn't had a day or so ago, trying to make sense of the shadowy sensations swirling around her. It was like watching ink swirling in water, or lighting a fog bank in her mind...She could make out vague shapes, eddies, forms that took on greater definition as she focused her attention on them.

There.

 _Oh shit..._

Remembering Rally's admonition, Celes swept her Koening across her back, and plucked up the submachine gun she'd been working on, checked its action, and locked in a clip.

Celes didn't want to leave May's side, but what she sensed might overwhelm them all if she didn't heed the call to arms. She grabbed the arm of the astonished nurse coming in to do a regular check.

"There's an emergency! I gotta go deal with it! You take care of Miss May, understand?!"

The older woman, though tired herself, caught the note of urgency in the younger and heavily armed policewoman's manner, and nodded.

Not feeling terribly good about abandoning May to the protection of a noncombatant, but not knowing what else to do, Celes whirled and sprinted down the hall. Already she could feel the darkness outside swirling, concentrating, and suddenly PUSHING.

The young security guard on the roof was more confident, but still wary. The regular trips of the unexpected evacuation shuttles had gotten peoples' hopes and confidence up, but that was no reason to get sloppy. Mister Loa had made that clear; if anything, the shuttle flights made it imperative that everybody be even MORE alert than ever. Especially with so many vulnerable people moving to the upper floors, awaiting their turn to cross the oof to the shuttles that would take them to the greater safety of the spaceport.

Thus, it was this heightened paranoia that allowed the young reservist guard to see the emergency lights below suddenly go out on one side of the hospital. And see the glints off the swarming chitinous shells that surged forward towards the building.

"THEY'RE ATTACKING!"

There were screams from the group of people waiting anxiously for the next shuttle flight, as all along the roof the guards began firing into the darkness, and the escorts assigned to them began shepherding them back into the building.

As she walked her own fire into the black tide below, the young guard felt cold claws of fear as she saw what the drones were doing.

 _Spawn of Satan! The fuckers are using each other as living ladders! They're coming up the side of the building!_

Her gun blazing, the young security guard screamed her orders as she backed up."EVERYBODY BACK!"

People were still streaming back through the rooftop doors when the first drones appeared over the edge of the roof.

Nanami grabbed up the submachine gun and the automatic pistol she'd managed to wheedle off Rally(though only after she'd shown that she knew her way around a CMC Pulse-Rifle and wasn't going to shoot herself trying to figure out how to use the pretty bang-bang) from where she'd stowed them, pulled on the pocketed apron with the pockets stuffed full of stoppered flasks she'd prepared, and made her way towards the roof accessways. She was seconds, if not minutes, ahead of any security response to the threat she could feel looming outside.

She was just behind the reinforced door to the roof, working the action on the pistol in her hand, when she heard the firing outside.

She whipped open the door-and was almost bowled over by a flood of screaming humanity. Cursing and swearing, she managed to remain upright, got moving against the tide, and soon found herself on the other side of the door-

-To find herself confronted by a drone, hanging from the frame, lunging towards the doorway. A security guard was slammed against the wall where he'd evidentially been trying to fight a rearguard action, protecting his charges while they sought refuge back inside the hospital.

Nanami was nonplussed.

"Fuck off, bugly."

The big pistol bucked in her hand as it thundered, Hybrid bones and musculature being the only things that kept the weapon's recoil from snapping Nanami's wrist as the twelve-gauge shell spat from the dubiously-designated Gong 'pistol'.

The drone wasn't so lucky in its biology or positioning. The slug punched into its face and sent it cartwheeling backwards away from the door, bug brains splattering off into the darkness.

Nanami grabbed the injured security man who had been trying to hold back the xeno, threw the bleeding but still breathing man inside, and made sure the door locked securely after her as she stepped out onto the roof.

The rooftop was ablaze with the roof arcs, bursts of fire, streams of tracer, and glints from crawling shell. Security had retreated in good order, and were holding their ranks, but there were so MANY Bugs, and they moved so damnably FAST.

At least they moved fast if you were merely human. Nanami could feel her own acid blood surge in her arteries as her body shifted into a new gear, could see the Bugs slow down in her vision.

Nanami was no marksman, certainly not the equal to Rally or Celes, but those who worked around Bugs and fully appreciated their dangers learned how to shoot. Those who didn't appreciate the dangers and relied wholly on their knowledge to keep them safe, typical;y didn't survive to pass the new knowledge along. Combine that appreciation and basic combat training with Hybrid reflexes, and even a relative novice like Nanami would earn the respect of a CMC firing range drill instructor.

The two drones she picked off as she stepped out from behind the stairwell shed could attest to that to their comrades in whatever hell Bugs went to when they died.

Another drone stuck its head up over the edge of the roof, and met a Gong shell going the other direction. Same drone dropped out of sight without a sound.

A scream sounded from the other side of the roof as a security person evidentially met death at the claws, teeth, or tail spike of a xeno-vermin. When a be-gored inhuman monstrosity loomed out of the fog from that part of the roof, pink flesh hanging from its mouth, Nanami shot the creature dead, then moved to position herself to intercept the concentrated spikes of evil she could feel coming from that direction.

She wasn't long in waiting.

When several more drones appeared, they were warmly greeted by hot lead. Squealing as they were kissed hard and intimately by the penetrator rounds, the Bugs collapsed hissing and screaming, kicking and flailing in dying-cockroach reflex as they expired.

A flask flew at another drone that was advancing on the guard flank position, the glass shattering as it impacted on xeno-chitin. Pinkish fumes seemed to foam around the Bug's chest and head, and the drone suddenly rocked back, batting at its dissolving skin, just before the skin burst into sputtering flame. With an inhuman scream, the Bug staggered back.

Nanami was rather proud of her 'Number Five Bug Melter' that had come out of a discussion with her coworkers over why the silicate Bugs didn't just burst into flames on contact with an oxygen atmosphere. She'd done a little tinkering, and had come up with a solution that neutralized the factors in their chitin that prevented just that. The solution she'd come up with in the hospital labs with the chemicals available wasn't potent and concentrated enough to outright kill the Bugs, but she was glad to see it could certainly HURT the damn things.

Which was fine by her. She had more of the stuff and a few other surprises in store for pesky uninvited guests.

Her blood singing as she got down to the business of personally killing things she'd long ago pledged to eradicate, Nanami moved to join the firing line.

In the lounge of the _Beagle_ the various parties were milling about, mostly around the comm console in one of the side offices.

"You get through yet?"

"I think so; I see nothing with the outbound signal, and I've got a node confirmation bleep, but I haven't got a response yet from anybody. Then again, we just sent signal out a few minutes ago; hope as we might, we can't expect a Marine voice communiqué yet telling us ETA on a relief fleet."

There were muttered curses and prayers among those gathered, but all the wishing in the room didn't result in a sudden response from the comm console telling them that rescue was only minutes away.

Cho raised his hands to calm the muttering. "Okay, we all knew we were going to have to wait, so all we can do now is wait for a response, and hold out until help arrives."

With that reminder, people began to step back and break away to return to more pressing duties, to insure that people would still be alive if and when relief from the stars arrived. Fury remained the console, eyeing it, Cho next to him.

Among those filing out of the comm-office, Mustang looked over at the side of the room where the ship's owners and one found lost girl had been sidelined. To his surprise, his dragooned deputy had disappeared, and a tall, elegant-looking dark-haired woman had taken his place standing next to Winry Rockbell. He recognized from the passenger manifest he'd looked over when investigating the ship one Kuno Kodachi, the supposed owner of the _Beagle_. The woman caught his attention, raising an eyebrow as she saw his gaze and curiosity.

"Where did you come from?"

"My, aren't you forward?"

"No, where did you come from, you weren't here before. And where's the other, Mss Jinnai?

"Oh dear, I came in on one of the evacuation shuttles from the hospital. Nanami decided to stay there and help out with the other end of the evacuation effort."

"I thought I told everybody to stay in the port and not going haring off when there are Bugs at large."

"We hardly went 'haring off'. We went in search of a missing friend. Such was well within our capabilities and we were in no danger. We found her, we brought her and her associates to the hospital where we could be of further help."

"Miss Kuno's the one who invited me aboard and told me to stay put when the alarms when off!" Winry put in brightly from next to the haughty aristocrat. From the other side of the young girl, where she was trying to get Winry into something more substantial than a towel, Izumi looked over askance at Kodachi.

"Okay, okay, so where did your male counterpart go?"

"Ranma-san? Oh, he left to return with the shuttles to the hospital, to help with the evacuation."

"HEY! YOU CANT GO IN THERE!"

Ranma ignored the man's shouted warning as he leaped over the last evacuees climbing out of the shuttle, the crew manhandling a stretcher out and over to the spaceport buildings.

He turned in the door and tossed back an explanation, just as the doors shut. "Sure I can, it's my shuttle!"

Any further protests from outside were cut off as the two shuttle craft ramped up their lift engines, forcing the ground crew to hastily back away from the thrown spray, and threw themselves into the sky, jets howling as they oriented towards the distant hospital.

From a distant rooftop outside the spaceport's fields of fire, the Elder Hunter zeroed in his helmet optics. He;d claimed this spot to watch the activity within the launch pit and landing pads where the _ooman_ aircraft had been coming in. He'd not been surprised to see the first return disembark younglings and gravid females; the _oomans_ were consistent there in their protection of their children and pregnant females, something the Yautja respected them for. The second return had yielded sick and elderly, which was more puzzling to the Hunters. Care as they might for their own frail and infirm, in cases of survival the Yautja put their own terminally ill and incapacitated old to painless death, or provided them the means to seek their own peace at their own hands in the face of danger. The _oomans'_ cozening of those who would only drag them down with the waste of resources at times like this puzzled the Yautja. So still the Hunter watched, if only to attempt to gin further insight into the mental workings of a prey species that still puzzled and surprised them.

And so the Elder Hunter was rewarded, much to his surprise, when he saw one particular _ooman_ sprint with uncharacteristic speed and agility and vault aboard one of the awaiting small aerospace craft, moments before it lifted up into the air.

 _It is him! The sword-bearer! The one who strikes hand to hand against the Hard Meat! The one who has already ambushed and defied a dozen Yautja attempts to claim his skull!_

The Elder tracked the pair of aircraft as they rumbled over the walls of the spaceport and accelerated into the rain over the darkened colony, noting their course.

The quick turnaround of the aircraft meant they had to be traveling somewhere in the built-up colony itself. That meant a destination within relatively easy traveling distance, without turning to call on vehicular pick up.

It also meant a location likely in the thick of Hard Meat-claimed territory. Someplace away from the security perimeter of the _oomans'_ devilish guns.

 _This was good. It meant opportunity to finally properly stalk and corner the sword-bearer, question him, and take his skull._

Looked like time for a little run. Excellent, even he was getting a little impatient waiting.

Man-made thunder lit the rooftop as outnumbered human forms fought with spidery alien forms, in the formers' struggle to deny the latters' entry into the building proper.

Nanami had found her plan to defend the landing pad and its entrance cut short when she'd had to run to cut off a particularly heavy sortie of the Bugs towards part of the thin security line. She was picking off targets of opportunity as she could, trying to make her way to a good position.

*BLAM*

She shot another as it peeked over the roof edge, but she could already sense several more skitter up and over in other places. Gunfire sounded again over the roof as Rally Vincent's gun collection was put to good use.

"DON'T LET'EM JUMP! AIM LOW AND HIT'EM AS THEY COME UP!"

"ON YOUR LEFT! HERMA-!"

"GAAAHHHHH!"

 _*Skrreeeeeee!*_

"KILL ITKILLITKILLIT!"(thunder of automatic weapons)

There was a splatter and hiss as alien ichor splashed across the roof, eating away at tar paper and tile, before hitting the underlying layers of silica sealant weatherproofing.

Nanami mentally blessed however it was that mandated that all new colonial prefab construction had to incorporate acid-resistant silica paneling in the exterior. Though too heavy for practical incorporation as vehicle and personal armor, the silica-crete could be used to produce prefab bunkerage, which helped immensely if you had to slaughter Bugs on your own home turf .

Which was good, because if you had to kill a lot of Bugs, it would suck if you ended up being killed anyway because spilled Bug splat ate away your shelter around you.

It did nothing for the people though, and unprotected antennae, pipes, seals, hinges, and whatnot were still vulnerable to being dissolved in the shit.

There was another scream close by as a reservist security man was cut in two by a Bug that had slipped up behind him. The man's blood and entrails showered over Nanami as the man's agony howled above her. She sent off a burst of fire from her gun in that direction, the man's scream cut off abruptly, and taken up by an inhuman caterwauling. The injured Bug backed away from the edge of the roof building, acidic blood pattering down one side of it.

 _Damn! Bugly's still alive up there. I'm either going to have to climb up there or go out where I can get another shot at it!_

But Nanami had more than one Bug to deal with. She could feel more climbing up the sides of the hospital, despite the best efforts of the defenders. There were simply too many, and quantity was taking on a quality of its own.

 _*"Don't worry, Ranma-sama is coming."*_ Kodachi's mental voice came through the Party Line to assure her.

Nanami sidestepped just barely the tail sweep of a Bug that just came around the corner on her. "Great! Can the Stud get here any FASTER?!"

 _*"He's doing what he can. Stay alive until then, Nanami-chan."*_

 _(Frustration)*"Yeah, but this thing's just poking along!"*_

"Well do what you must, because we can really use a macho hand here!" Nanami groaned as two more Bugs joined the one trying to stick her.

She grabbed at her dwindling supply of vials and threw one at the trio, using their distraction with the flying object to get off a burst of rounds into one of them. Blue flame burst around the two as they got a dose of a phosphorus-based home-brew incendiary mixture. All three milled about screeching, one of them around several holes blown in its body, the other two on fire.

Unfortunately, one of the ones on fire shambled towards her, haloed in sputtering flames, and determined to take her down with it.

"Jeez! Can't this tub go any faster?!" Ranma groused. He'd taken the shuttles, rather than roof-hop to the hospital because he hadn't wanted to be distracted by having to deal with Bugs and Hunters. But as the little ship skipped and sideslipped around pockets of turbulence, the trip seemed to be taking a long time to get anywhere. "What is this thing, a metered taxi and we're taking the long way there?!"

#"I assure you, Mister Saotome, that we are making all due speed towards our destination, with regards to human safety. There is considerable low-level turbulence due to the storm interacting with the urban concentration below."#

"Well, I'm hardly human any more, so what about speed if you don't HAVE to taking human safety in mind?!"

#"We can go considerably faster, if you authorize it. Know, however, there is an element of risk to you if we increase speed."#

Ranma could feel Nanami's anger, frustration, and no small amount of fear as she found herself increasingly outnumbered against a foe Ranma couldn't see. His own frustration at being out of the fight was mounting moment to moment. "Screw my own risk! Nanami's in danger! Get this tub moving, ah...what are you called anyways?"

#"My designation is 'KORI' , Mister Saotome. Knowledge Organization Resource Intelligence. Increasing Acceleration Now."#

NOW was the signal for a sudden roar from the rear of the craft, and Ranma suddenly finding himself almost punching backwards through the rear of the seat he was in. As it was, he found himself practically embedded in the acceleration couch, one armrest engraved by his fingers, as the small craft hotrodded itself through the inclement weather.

#"You may wish to brace yourself, sir."# The computer's tone was dry and thoroughly belated.

Ranma's teeth were gritted in a rictus grin. "Gee...thanks for the warning...KORI?...'Ice', huh? You're already beginning to remind me of a certain...ice-queen...I used to know."

#"I will consider myself complemented by the comparison."#

Nanami had backed up against some sort of military-looking, probably security, hovercraft on the roof, having disposed of her three admirers, and looking to catch her breath before going to do what she could to shore up the groups of security blasting away in the gloom.

That's when she sensed the black-ink-in-water evil presence looming above her, a static-like hissing sounding close at hand in her mental ear.

Nanami swung her gun at the mental hissing and pulled the trigger.

-Only to pull on an empty magazine. Her gun was out of bullets.

She was still scrambling for her backup gun when when the tail come swinging in and around her, scooping her up and tossing her.

"OH SHIIIITTTTTT!" Nanami screamed as she sailed off the roof.

Celes was still speeding along the hall when she felt, rather than heard, Miss Jinnai's scream of shock and a sense of falling from outside.

 _Oh crap! Rally was going to have her head!_

Celes might dislike Jinnai Nanami, but she'd resolved to vent her displeasure by mercilessly taunting the haughty older woman. She didn't want anything to actually HAPPEN to the woman!

Dodging a group of panicked people coming down from the roof, Celes was almost running along the walls in her haste to get up to the roof where she might be able to do something...help Miss Jinnai or avenge her.

She was almost there, even fighting the flow of people who minutes before had been crowding near the rooftop access, eagerly awaiting airlift and at least temporary safety a the spaceport.

That's when she heard a scream BEHIND her, and felt a mental hiss INSIDE the hospital from that direction.

The Bugs had already gotten in.

Aya gasped for breath as she felt the air lock pressurize around her. She had survived, barely. Even if she didn't want to admit it the Umbrella freak show had almost done her in. While her abilities protected her from the bulk of the biological nastiness that had been cooked up surviving a reactor gone critical and the long journey to where ever the hell she ended up was a completely different story. She was tired, hungry and stiff. Curled into the fetal position for several weeks tended to do a number on the spine even if you were enhanced from the cellular level up by an ancient symbiotic thing.

The quiet click of a round being chambered let her know that she still wasn't out of the woods yet. A gruff voice bluntly stated, "Its polite to come in the front door. You know where all the nice weapon detectors are."

The blond slowly raised her hands and turned around slowly, "I.D. Is in my hip pocket, two pistols one on my back one on my ankle."

"Blue Haven is an independent port. All weapons are to be surrendered at the port authority or kept within the docking vessel. All class four and higher explosives must be declared before approaching closer than one AU of the port." Aya eyed the man for a moment as he continued repeat the rules and regulations of the port by rote. As her senses tuned in on him she realized that the large man was not a man but a rather crude synthetic only appearing human. Any plans for outsmarting the synthetic were quickly sunk by to approaching security officers that were clearly human.

"Ah geeze second time this week." The shorter of the two complained as he walked up to the babbling synthetic. The large construct had moved on to section four article six of docking procedures and fees.

The taller man eyed her as the shorter played with a control panel. Not seeing a space suit he looked around and found a discarded aluminum can on the floor. It's spilled contents covering a bit of the hall way, "Great another littering offence."

Aye blinked several times as she tried to put two and two together but couldn't see the spilled drink because of the large synthetic blocking her path.

"Look lady. We know were not New Mars but we do try to keep a clean house. That soda gets into the grav plates and it is hell to clean out." The man continued to lecture as he picked up the can and put it into a trashcan.

She blinked several times and lowered her hands slowly as the synthetic went limp, "I'm sorry. It was an accident. The synthetic came around the corner and I wasn't paying attention."

The tech gave her a nod, as she backed away, "Well no harm done. Get out of here before my boss decides to make us all fill out a lot of paper work."

Aya nodded and smiled as she quickly made her way for the central hub. The sooner she got her hands on some platinum and got moving again she could find out just what the hell happened at the repository. Part of her knew that Eve had escaped. Her luck just wouldn't allow that abomination to be consumed in the self-destruction of the lab. There was also a new taste just on the edge of her senses. She wasn't sure what it was but it was growing stronger especially in the last few days. She looked at the food court and shook her head or maybe it was just her metabolism getting cranky. Those gyros looked far too appetizing for cart food.

As Rally moved through the ghost town she did her best to ignore the throbbing at the base of her skull. Nanami had attributed it to Kodachi and Ranma's sex games and exiled herself to a cryo tube to ride the last of the changes out. Celes and Winry were given the benefit of a cocoon their higher brain functions slowed and dulled during the worst of the metamorphosis. Rally didn't have such a luxury. She had to get to a mother and son before the bugs found them. As she charged into the home fully intent on raining down hell upon her ditzy neighbor the frying pan to the back of the skull was a welcome relief.

Rally turned to say something angry or perhaps witty but instead collapsed where she stood.

Trista gasped in horror as she realized she just laid out her neighbor and ride to the shelter. She was so worried about looters or criminals that she completely forgot about Rally. Trista's face scrunched up a bit as she looked at the door Rally broke down and scowled, "Serves her right!"

Her little boy simply gaped in confusion as he watched his mother knock out one of his favorite 'aunts'. A giddy smile crossed Rally's face as she sprawled on the floor. A brief trip away from reality was exactly what the doctor ordered.

Looking over her victim Trista just shook her head. Rally sprawled out on the floor with full combat gear and a goofy grin on her face made for an amusing picture if it weren't for the cold wet air flowing in to her home. The middle aged woman waved her hand over Rally's face, "Ms. Vincent are you alright?"

Rally giggled a bit as Trista tried to get her attention, "Oh yea... I'm... Great!" Rally Vincent 1.0 proceeded to go off line as Rally Vincent 2.0 with hybrid technology came online, kinda.

Trista watched as her dusky skinned neighbor let out an erotic moan and squirm a bit on the floor, "Ms. Vincent!"

"Mhmm, yea?" Rally cooed out as she languidly stretched out the imaginary kinks in her back. She looked around the room with an almost childlike gaze.

The mother and accountant blustered for a moment being quite unfamiliar with head trauma and violence in general, "Rally hun, how many fingers am I holding up."

She cocked her head to the side and considered the question while looking at her neighbor's hand, "Three. Why is your front door open?"

"Because you knocked it down." She replied calmly. Another round of thunder and blustering winds blew into the house, "We're going to shelter remember?"

A quick nod came from the gunrunner as she cautiously stood up. She teetered a bit taking a couple wobbly steps before coming to rest against Trista, "I think you should drive."

Trista looked Rally in the eye and watched the area around her eyes darken and take on the appearance of a liberal application of dark eye shadow. The middle aged accountant blinked several times assuming the light was playing tricks on her, "That would be best."

Rally looked at Trista's son and joked, "Get your jacket squirt."

"I'm not a squirt you old hag!" The son indignantly replied.

A mother's eye twitched a bit as Rally shot the child a raspberry. The heavily armed Rally acting like a child caused her to shout, "Get your jacket and get in that car now!"

Taking a step away from her support Rally giggled a bit. She started picking up bit of the door frame an accusing voice caught her off guard in her addled state, "The weather stabilizers aren't the problem are they?"

Rally just gave her one of those smiles as she placed the door back into position keeping out most of the rain, "Worse than that."

Trista looked at her expecting an answer. The gunsmith joked, "I left my phone at the civil defense air field."

A weary eye looked over the beaten up speeder as Rally stuffed her son into the back seat. She didn't linger long in the rain and quickly crawled into the driver's seat, "What happened to your car Rally?"

The gunsmith just gave her a shrug and climbed into the beaten up speeder. Trista brought the vehicle to life with a turn of the key. Rally quickly added, "We need to go to the air field first."

Trista really didn't think a phone was worth retrieving during this storm but the air field seemed as safe a place as any to be durning a storm like this. Her optimistic thinking remained so until they arrived. The gusty winds had taken their toll on the cheep prefabricated structures and the fourth hangar of five had collapsed onto its self.

It didn't take long for Rally to get to the locker room once she told Trista to wait in the car. The ringing of the phone from inside the plastic locker she did not expect. A gloved hand carefully turned on the little device, "Rally here."

"Rumors of you're death seem greatly exaggerated." A thick Russian accent purred out, "You continue to impress me Ms. Vincent."

The gun-runner tried to remain calm as she questioned, "How did you find me."

"I suppose it is a harmless curiosity to indulge." An arrogant voice continued, "Your's and the little whore's name were listed among the KIA and your helmet cam was used as evidence of bug infestation and hunter attack."

Rally shifted a bit. Her new instincts demanded she put an end to this threat but her intellect told her smashing her phone would do little more than amuse her stalker. Instead she merely quipped, "I'll be long gone by the time you get here."

"Perhaps. I doubt you would leave that colony to fend for itself." A haughty voice pressed her demand, "Not when you know one of my personal cruise liners is a week closer than the nearest CMC detachment."

She took several deep breaths as the offer lingered in her mind. Three days ago she would have taken it. Her life in exchange for May's safety and that of the colony. Today a violent spike of energy entered Rally's voice, "You can take your cruiser and shove it up your sadistic gaping hole." Rally ended the conversation clicking the phone off. A silent furious resolve formed with in her reforming psyche, she would not kneel.

A thin smile crossed her lips as she walked out of the locker room with a duffle bag containing the contents of her and May's locker. She thumbed her phone for a moment and pulled up the link to her ship at the port. The small device searched for a connection for several moments but could not find one. A rolling roar of thunder reminded her just how bad the storm had gotten. It also gave her a reminder of what got her caught up in this mess in the first place. She hurried back to Celes' speeder where a waiting Trista and son were getting impatient. Rally tossed the duffel bag in one of the hatches Winry and modified into the frame of the car as she crawled in. Rally quietly considered the fact that she could not get signal but the queen bitch had managed to call her. The implication of a ship or a drone in the same sector made her a bit uncomfortable.

Trista nervously looked at Rally as the wind howled through the open car door and the thin rag top, "To the port?"

"One more errand." Rally stated as if the skies were blue and all was right with the world.

The accountant blinked, "We really shouldn't be out in this storm. It's getting worse."

Giving her a little nod Rally reassured, "We're just going to the impound lot at the other end of the air strip."

"Why?" Trista may have not wanted to question the gun toting and slightly concussed neighbor her son didn't quite put such things together.

Rally smirked and turned to the kid in the back seat, "Have you been off world Simon?"

Even as the rain beat down on the neo-hybrid she smiled. Her hand traced the graceful curves of her impounded racer with a gentle hand. Rally looked over the security device preventing her baby from flying. She pulled out her cell phone and smiled as it interacted with the grounding boot on the forward landing strut. The small, "Oh yea." Rally let out as her cell cracked the docking boot would have definitely confirmed May's lingering suspicions about her roommate's sexuality with guns and cars. Then again who needs a man when you have a skin tight g-suit and a secondary stabilizer that you let shake just a bit so you could feel the road. Rally walked around the Piranha racer making sure the impound goons hadn't left her any surprises or taken anything off.

As she kicked aside the ground lock Rally moved to access a panel just under the canopy. The racer's electronics quickly came online as she let the startup sequence run. Rally darted over to Winry's speeder and retrieved a few items shoving them into a small cargo hatch on the front of the racer usually reserved for extra fuel cells or boosters.

Rally's head violently turned to the direction of the hospital. The sudden movement was not lost on the middle management mother, "What's wrong?"

"Change of plans." Rally considered her very limited options. She needed to get back to the hospital now. Rally opened up the canopy of the racer and pulled Trista and Simon out of the car, "Sit here. Don't touch anything."

Rally quickly went to the rear hard point behind the canopy and below the engine. She cursed as she remembered that the racer was setup for 'Racing' not bug hunting, fugitive chasing or well, war. Rally's eyes scanned the impound lot surely there was something. A grin crossed her face as she looked over a nearly totaled Red Tail. Her eyes nodded skyward as she thanked the engineering gods for the 14 by 45 universal hard point, the industry standard for everything from luggage racks to the Koenig 12mm auto cannon. Rally hurried over to the "evidence" and quickly pulled the release levers and triumphantly smiled as the manual releases dropped the mounted rifle to the ground. She quickly checked the action on the weapon. A round cycled easily through the action she looked down the bore checking for obstructions. Sliding the single round back into the chamber she pointed the cannon at another wreck of "evidence" and pressed the manual fire. The loud report from the cannon and the shattered door proved the weapon functional. Rally quickly gathered up the heavy piece of equipment her hybrid strength letting her move the heavy cannon with no more effort than moving an over filled laundry hamper. The metal rods clicked into place powering the integrated targeting systems of the cannon pod. A tiny green light flickered on blinked three times then shut off letting her know it was operational. She quickly returned to the Red Tail and looted the ammo drum. Of the two thousand rounds rally estimated that maybe a bit over half remained. She snapped the drum into place and took one last look at Celes speeder. Sure the kitten was going to give her hell but she could only yell at her if she lived.

The ID chips belonging to the disaffected young man lounging against a wall in the corner of a room in the hospital, trying not to be noticed and dragooned into work, and wishing real bad for a smoke, identified him as Gary Lupus, a recent emigrant from Old Terra. Truth was, it wasn't his name, but one of several names he had taken over the years, 'cause if The Man didn't know your true name, The Man(being whoever in authority that the young man disagreed with) had no power over you, or so the young man thought. This was important, because 'Gary' considered himself a rebel against the suffocating complacency that was Old Terran society in specific, and other people in general.

Yeah, Gary thought to himself on an almost hourly basis since he'd been dumped on the appropriately named Mudpie, he was a thorn in the side of The Man, hacker par excellence who stuck it to bloated heads and hypocrites on the 'Webs, one of the few brave enough to speak his mind against the forces that were, and the barely human sheep who moved along at their direction, trampling people with real opinions and real ideas under a stifling mediocrity. He'd been sticking it and stinging the sellouts and hypocrites around him until they'd treacherously rallied and cruelly hounded him into exile, with barely the clothes on his back to his assumed name, on a backwater world without even a proper datanet, victim of a conspiracy to get rid of him.

Truth was, Gary was a rebel without a clue, too smart for his own good, too dumb to realize it. He'd been little more than a petty annoyance to a number of newsboards on Old Terra, his rants and raves ignored for the most part by everybody else. He never espoused a serious cause, never took up a radical position, never did anything to advance a true social agenda. His 'righteous attacks' amounted to little more than old-fashioned rambling spam and personal slander aimed scattershot at targets of opportunity, mostly blogs and boards whose constituency couldn't have cared less who he was or what he was about. His 'exile' had come when the Web-cops had begun nosing around about fraudulent IDs and suspect petty Web fraud; sure they were after his life, a panicked Gary had lifted his parents' credit numbers and run, hastily forging an ID as a computer tech, signing on as colonial labor with a company he recognized from the logos on his computer hardware, and had been cattleboated offworld in coldsleep, unaware that The Man really didn't give a damn about the midge that now went by the name Gary Lupus. Gary had even, in his haste, made the mistake of checking off the wrong destination; if he hadn't been so panicked, he might have properly applied for a decent planet like New Babylon, or Roshtaria. Instead, he would up being decanted on an agro-and-ore dustball in the middle of nowhere, a place certainly NOT like the cushy built-up urboplexes he was more comfortable with and would have preferred.

Now he just rotted on a backwater like Mudpie, one of the lower end colonists in Mudpie's growing slum district, drifting from odd job to odd job to earn his calories, waiting for the opportunity to make it big and get off this jerkwater ball of waste. He'd applied for a job at the communications center, but had quickly alienated the corporate shirts there and the barely literate colonial bumpkins banging the keyboards and been fired. He'd found too that haughty Earth attitude didn't make him any friends on the street either, and the local farmers and ranchers didn't have need for a soft arcology-boy who couldn't code software in the field AND literally carry his own weight.

So he'd ended up working a half-dozen part-time jobs, mostly mucking up garbage and screwing in light-bulbs, and doing the odd tech work for the street gangs because their own eggheads were too busy doing more worthwhile stuff and he didn't have enough to be worth beating up and rolling for his scant possessions. The local organized crime gang just kept tabs on him(he thought of it as keeping him on retainer), figuring his job at the hospital as maintenance crew MIGHT one day yield access to the pharmacy, but they weren't holding their breaths on that plan.

He'd been caught at the hospital at one of his jobs by the alarm, forced to stay when the place went into lockdown. Since then he'd stayed out from underfoot, avoiding being near the bays where the doctors and nurses were dealing with victims, hiding in the crowds who'd taken refuge behind the hospital walls, grabbing a cot where he could, grabbing a bite to eat from the cafeteria when nobody was paying attention, until the business sorted itself all out.

Gary had heard the stories of Bugs and Hunters in the popular media back home, but dismissed most of the tales as hyped-up drama. Right, like a few aliens were a threat to Old Terra and the Human species! It was all sheep-hype and The Man pumping up a panic to keep the sheep cowed and the military budgets high. He knew better. The Man wasn't fooling him!

Thus he wasn't overly concerned, almost detached in his apathy, about the siege of the hospital. The corporate troops would arrive, the Marines would drop in, clean up the Bugs and save the scared colonial hicks, and he could hitch a ride out of here to someplace civilized, there to make his fortune and plot his revenge on the sheep back home.

Gary heard the security-geeps suddenly getting all upset outside his hiding place. Scared colonial hicks, jumping at shadows, he figured. A bunch of dirt farm meatheads playing soldier or borderworld dictatorial wannabe officers, Though there were some babes in uniform, like the buxom little blond or that hot dark-skinned brunette he's seen lounging about earlier. Too bad Security had turned him down when he had applied for work with them; he coulda done with some of that.

When he heard that there were evacuation flights taking place, he just knew he was getting out of this. He always did. He just had to pick the right moment to step into line and he'd be ridding out of here.

Boredom and curiosity were getting the better of him though. What was the hold up? Why weren't they calling more people to the evacuation shuttles? Maybe if he could see what the big deal was, he'd have a better idea of what to do. Yeah, maybe just peek through those shutters and see what the whole cockup was.

What harm could it do? He'd just take a look outside. Besides, the hospital was built like a fortress, silica-crete cladding he'd heard in passing. Between the meatheads with all the guns and the armor cladding on the building, no Bugs were getting in. Who knows, maybe he'd see a good show if the security goons were shooting stuff up. Just like in his favorite VR game _Marine Glory_.

Stepping into one of the abandoned outside-facing rooms, Gary walked up to the heavy shutters protecting the window and reached for the latch.

The panel unlocked and opened up. Gary pressed his nose against the pane of glass so revealed.

 _-Darkness outside. Nothing to see. What a gyp-_

Then the darkness _shifted_.

Too late Gary became aware that the darkness was several bodies pressed up against the glass outside.

There was a sound of shattering, a glimpse of razor shards, and a set of gaping, crystalline-white teeth growing suddenly larger-

-And Gary's world ended in agony.

Samuel Gershen ran with the crowd of fearful people, fleeing downstairs from the chaos that had broken out on the roof. He was a Company Man, one of the crowd of Kessler Corporation ants that kept the company going, so running with a crowd was no new thing to him.

It seemed he was always running. For all of his sixty-five years of life, Samuel Gershen seemed to be running away from something. Running from obligation, running from frustration, running from love, running from debt, now running from Bugs.

It wasn't that Samuel was a bad man, he was just arguably unlucky, and, he'd admit, cowardly. It was his central flaw, one that defined his life.

He always tried to avoid trouble in his life, backing down from bullies, running away from duties, and avoiding other things. A pattern that had continued when he'd found himself running from his family on Sagan, not wanting to become responsible for his ailing parents, suddenly finding himself too busy in his work to listen to his brother's pleas to help. He couldn't face the prospects, the responsibility, so he applied for offworld work with the astromining corporation he'd managed to get employed with.

Volunteering wasn't a regular part of his routine, unless it allowed him to avoid doing something else. He did his work for his company well, if not particularly imaginatively or with any great zeal. He learned to get by, and with time, forget what he'd left behind.

In time he'd adjusted to his new life and new position, slipped into the local social scene, made new friends, and even found love.

Things weren't perfect, but they were good for Samuel Gershen, or so he believed.

Then he'd caught his wife of five years with another man. Rather than face the betrayal, the excuses, the heartbreak, he'd fled, not wanting to go through the process of hearing her out, then watching their marriage collapse. In part, he knew, due to his evading his growing troubles at home by hiding at work. Running had worked for him before, why not with his other problems? He realized that it didn't, but that didn't stop him from running again.

He'd left his wife behind. To his later regret, he would ruefully admit to himself, he had also left their four year old daughter behind. But at the time he'd reasoned that they would all be happier if he wasn't there. He'd fled the opportunity to find out if that might be true.

Again, as soon as he could, he'd gotten a transfer for offworld work.

He'd spent the next twenty years or so going from world to world, going with his work, slowly advancing in his career as a ore separation technician and industrial geochemist, though not as fast as he might have for his expertise. There, too, his habit of running had handicapped him, as he tended to back down from confrontations with superiors, coworkers, and prospects, leaving other, more aggressive opportunity seekers pass him by. Too, he'd run from his troubles in a number of bottles, not enough to make him a career alcoholic, but enough to slow him down and earn him the occasional black mark on his record. Similarly he'd shied from love on a number of occasions, pulling back just when things were getting serious, suddenly afraid of taking on the responsibilities of a relationship.

It had earned him a reputation for being something of a reliable worker, a steady hand, if somewhat standoffish, timid, and uninvolved socially. He had his friends, but no really close associates outside work. He was, all in all, a lonely aging man. Not good and connected enough for a higher position, but good enough for a spear-carrier job on a resource world like Alpha Ceti.

He'd taken the assignment to Mudpie with the Company to reinvent himself, settle down, take stock of himself, and maybe find the courage to quit running. Maybe even find in himself the strength to try to reconcile with his past. He still hadn't found the strength yet, but he was still looking.

Like many people, Samuel had been evacuated to the hospital to await help. He'd done what he could to help his fellow refugees, all the while trying to keep down the old familiar fear bubbling inside him, while knowing that the situation was far more serious. So it was with no small relief that he'd learned that they were starting to airlift refugees to safety, and that they were lining up people for the evac flights to the spaceport, part of a process of steps that would hopefully result in everybody getting offworlld when reinforcements arrived to deal with the Bugs.

Running again, Samuel had mused. He was running again, this time as part of a crowd. He wondered where he'd end up running to this time after all this.

That became decidedly uncertain when the ruckus had broken out on the roof, and the line of people waiting evacuation had reversed and started fleeing for the dubious shelter of the inner hospital, behind locked doors and walls. Samuel found himself being pulled along with the crowd, swept up in the panic.

Then Samuel saw the chitinous monstrosity emerge onto the main hall from a side corridor, realizing with shock that there weren't any access ways to the roof in that direction.

The monster was on them before anybody could scream, but not before they could panic.

Samuel Gershen didn't panic, though. In those few moments as he saw the Xenomorph emerge and strike towards the clustered refugees, grasping claws reaching for a vulnerable-looking young woman, Samuel found himself free of fear, curiously drained of shock, as if he was floating above his own body. Without second thought, he stepped between the oncoming monster and its prey, his own arms grabbing the young woman and swinging her, throwing her behind him and through the doorway. It was almost as if he was moving in slow motion.

He then turned to meet the inhuman attacker. Time seemed resumed its normal place, then sped up. Claws flashed, and Samuel felt sudden horrible pain as his upraised arms were bitten through, his stomach carved open.

His running had ended.

Celes had been making for the roof and the trouble breaking out there when trouble had broken inside to be with her.

Celes slid in, sensing the darkness ahead of her. It was just ahead, just beyond that door-!

Chaos greeted her. A wall of panicked shrieking, wails of terror, and the copper-sharp tang of freshly-shed blood assaulted her senses.

And the center of it, of course, was a Bug.

The Bug reared up in front of a packed doorway of people scrambling to get farther inside the hospital's interior, behind doors, away from the monster that was finishing disemboweling an older man. A Security man way in the back, unable to get a clear shot through all the screaming people pushing and shoving to get away.

Celes DID have a clear line of sight, She raised her rifle, took quick aim and fired.

 ***BLAM!BLAM!***

The Bug jerked with the impacts, dropping the corpse in its claws, but didn't go down. Instead, it spun and lurched at her.

"Oh _hell!_ "

The bullet hardly phased the damn thing. An armor piercing round that would have punched through a Predator's plate and mesh garments to fragment inside to lethal effect, just went into the Bug and dissolved, or passed through, out the other side, and into a wall.

 _Shit! Rally was right, you need something with more blast to stop one of these things! I don't have time to swisscheese this bitch and hope it blends to death!_

The bug was still coming at her.

Worse yet, she was sure that she'd seen skeletal tails behind the thing disappearing in the OTHER direction.

May's room was down that direction.

Celes growled, tossed the rifle aside, and set her ground.

 _Okay, we do this old school._

Celes Victoria might not have had two resurrected martial arts demigods as tutors, but ever since her parents had died at the hands of pirates, the girl had entertained fantasies of one day hunting down her family's killers and taking them on one on one. She'd become a school yard brawler, kicking the asses of any and all school bullies who'd tried to mess with her, and anybody who gave her shit, until she had almost been permanently expelled for putting them in the hospital. Izumi Curtis had put an end to that raw, unfocused aggression. Instead, she'd insisted that her girls knew how to take care of themselves, and that meant no wasted effort, no lashing out before its time. Izumi had honed the raw metal that was Celes Victoria and given her an edge. Mentoring professionally under Rally Vincent had only polished the blade.

And Nanami Jinnai had remade the material of that blade, but not its nature. The lethal weapon was still there, just in new metal.

Celes dodged a claw-sweep, rolled under the charging Bug, and kicked out as her legs came up.

Legs struck like hydraulic pistons with a speed and precision beyond mere human, although the original move had been perfected by a little human girl to bring down far bigger school yard bullies. But whereas scrawny adolescent legs had kicked out to lame young human shins, teenage legs strung in musculature more akin to bionic myomers, wrapped around bones that had traded calcium for something more like interlaced carbon fiber and ferroceramic lashed out with greater force and other targets in mind.

The Bug screamed as its knee joints shattered and it dove into the floor.

Another kick smashed at the pelvis, cracking the tough exoskeleton.

Celes rolled out from under the lashing tail and back to her feet, turning to follow the now crippled monster.

The Bug was still not out of fight, though. With amazing speed it clawed its way on the floor, waddling serpentine like an alligator, hissing like a steam locomotive, towards the screaming panicking people packing the end of the hall. Hissing acid smoked long its belly, burning it and etching the floor underneath.

Celes quickly retrieved her gun and came up behind the crawling Bug, leaped onto its back, quickly stomping up its spine. As it swung its banana -from-hell head to take a bite at her, she calmly put the barrel of the Koenig inches away from the monster's neck and pulled the trigger, neatly blowing the Bug's head off and stopping its squirming.

A sharp acrid odor that tore at the back of throats and stung eyes filled the corridor. As did a shocked silence as the onlookers tried to process the rescue they'd just had.

That silence was almost immediately broken: "Get some fire extinguishers! Get some powder on that before it eats through the floor!"

The bark of authority, even from somebody as young as Celes Victoria, galvanized several people into action. Maybe it was the uniform, maybe it was the fact that she was standing over a dead xenomorph she'd just killed, but people jumped. A fire extinguisher was quickly aimed at the smoking acid, several plastic trays of dry chemicals that Miss Jinnai had mixed up and left around the hospital halls for the express purpose of neutralizing acid spills were thrown on the hissing mess.

Celes didn't stay to supervise the cleanup. She was already running down the hall in pursuit of the other Bug she knew she'd seen.

If anybody had been close and observant enough to notice, they might have noticed that Celes' eyes had turned metallic gold and her fingernails had gone black.

Nanami groaned as she rolled to her feet. She hadn't fallen ALL the way to the street below; she'd distinctly felt herself slamming into several climbing drones, bleeding off momentum and incidentally knocking them off the sides of the building. Plus, whatever instincts she'd inherited seemed to include a righting instinct, so she'd more or less landed on her feet...but god damn it, it still HURT!

Suddenly being grabbed from several directions shook the dizziness out of her head. Clawed hands ripped at a breast, shredding clothing and drawing blood, sparking sharp pain and an enraged hiss from her.

"What-?! Oh SHI-!"Nanami screamed as she felt claws tearing at her scalp and arms. Her hands flailed around her before finding the two loaded pistols still harnessed to the sides of her chest. She whipped her arms up, luckily still holding the guns in her grip, fingers reflexively pulling on the triggers. Fire cracked out wildly, and shrill alien screams rang out as bullets bit into integument and through into softer tissues.

Nanami spun and pulled away from her assailants' grips, feeling skin and hair being left behind as she did so.

Nanami grit her teeth at the sharp pain. "You know what? Fuck this! Fuck you! I'm NOT meat!"

Already ripped and tattered clothing ripped and tore more as a spiked tail telescoped from Nanami's tailbone, armored plates and spikes suddenly grew along back, shoulders, and forearms, and claws extended on hands and feet as Nanami went into full-out war form. Not caring, in the heat of the moment, who saw or heard what, Nanami snarled as she whirled on her attackers.

The resurgent pack of drones around her met a hail of hot lead. Those who managed to evade it and close with their target, suddenly found a face full of spiked tail smashing into them.

"THAT'S FOR MY HAIR, YOU OVERGROWN TAPEWORM!" Nanami screamed as she blasted a drone's pelvis apart.

"AND THAT'S FOR GRABBING MY CHEST!"Another Bug found an empty pistol thrown with enough force into its forehead to pulp the melon-like foreskull.

"AND THIS IS JUST BECAUSE I FUCKING HATE GODDAMN BUGS!" The sharp-spined tail blurred like a ripsaw across the throat of another drone, knocking it down.

Nanami Jinnai was back in the fight and mad as hell.

Loa glanced over from where he was hosing charging drones with machine gun fire. He'd seen Doctor Jinnai go over the edge and feared the worst, but could not leave his fire position. Now he heard some amazingly loud profanity and sounds of combat from the street below, suggesting that not only was Doctor Jinnai still very much alive, but evidentially still fighting.

How, he had no idea.

Loa had little time to speculate, or consider going over to investigate, as another pack of xenomorph invaders rushed his position.

Nurse Shalene Takata hummed to herself as she checked over the readouts on the machines supporting the comatose young patient. MIss May's condition hadn't improved any since she had been brought in, but she wasn't any worse, Still, she was to be prepped for transport to the spaceport in another two trips, so Nurse Takata had come down to get that started.

She was a local girl, a daughter of one of the original terraformers to settle Alpha Ceti. Her earliest memories were of growing up in the hab modules clustered around the atmosphere reduction towers, or riding in the cab of her mother's agrocrawler, tilling Mudpie's newly enriched soil and planting the various strains of fast-grass and shrub that would stabilize the soil and convert atmospheric gases. When conditions had stabilized, the Takatas had moved out to one of the new farmsteads opening up. There, little Shalene had matured among the cows and chickens on the open range, aside from accompanying her parents on their regular trips into the city and to visit the various terraforming regulator outposts. She'd grown up alongside the saw grass and the terraweed.

Then her father had died in an accident up the coast, trapped during a routine servicing visit to an atmosphere monitoring station. He'd bled out before help could get to him in the still nasty weather Alpha Ceti VII could produce, even with the atmoregulation. It had affected her profoundly, igniting in her a desire to be helpful and useful to her homeworld by entering medicine. Her mother and the Company had enthusiastically supported her ambition, the latter happy to underwrite the training costs with a scholarship, as training up medical help from the local population was cheaper than shipping it in from offworld.

She'd moved to the central township, taken the necessary correspondence courses at the Company Center, done her internships at the Company clinic and the general hospital. showing good grades and impressing her seniors with her upbeat attitude and enthusiasm for the work. She'd even done rounds out at the mines and processing plants, helping the onsite doctors and EMTs. Then she'd come back as a practicing nurse at the hospital. But her real ambition was to study up and become a doctor. It might require going offworld, but she'd return with the necessary degrees and the advanced training, and join the ranks of the doctors on staff, and do more good for her humble homeworld and its pioneers.

She remained too busy with her professional nursing career to marry, though Shalene intended to do some day. She had plenty of time, and there were plenty of prospects, between the cowboys and miners who looked her over with a courting eye as she attended to their injuries, and the other doctors and nurses who she worked with.

Nurse Takata loved Alpha Ceti VII; loved the open plains, the open sky, even the muddy oceans and the stormy weather. She resented the name 'Mudpie' that people, especially offworlders, gave it, with that particular complaining sneer; a place was what she made of it, and she made it her home. She intended to live out her life here, work in the hospital, make a career of it, then one day marry, make her own homestead out on the plains or in one of the small communities, and raise a family. She had no desire to leave Alphacet, as she called it, for greener pastures as she'd heard others complain. She liked being part of the frontier.

Only...the infestation, and the Hunter invasion made that dream look impossible. She'd been among the staffers who had worked around the clock treating victims of Bug attacks and the chaos caused by them. She'd seen the acid burns, the torn up and open bodies, seen the fear in the refugees that had crowded into the hospital behind its fortified walls. She'd seen the anxiety in the faces of the so-few security men, despite the brave front and stoic expressions they put on for the civilians' benefit. The thought of what they all feared crawling around outside, waiting for a way in, combined with the fatigue of long hours, little sleep, and minimal food began to tell on even her optimism, It looked like the only part of her long term dream that would come true would be the dying here...

She stopped, shock her head, and focused back on her work. Yes, it was better to focus on what she COULD do, than dwell on the perils that faced them all. Think positive thoughts, just as the staff told patients, and the chances of a positive outcome became that much better. If everybody did what they could, then they would all get out of this alive. Things WERE already looking up; Mister Hughes and that big man Mister Loa had better organized the police and volunteers to protect them, the newcomer Miss Jinnai had helped them with some of the facegripper cases, saving people who might otherwise have died, the nice Vincent woman she'd met in passing had brought guns for the security men, and that other woman, Miss Kodachi was it? She'd arranged for the shuttles that got the children out and were now going to get everybody else out to the more secure spaceport! Yes, things were looking much better than they had before!.

That's when she saw the elongated, skeletal silhouette moving behind the modesty screen, lit from behind by lights in the hall.

Shalene's breath caught in her throat as she stood paralyzed, seeing the inhuman motion just yards away. Her pulse raced, though, her heart hammering in her chest.

Maybe it wouldn't sense them, maybe it would pass them by in search of other prey. She hoped against hope that the thing would go away and leave them be.

Her hand inched for a weapon, something, anything, to put, just as she put herself between the screen and her patient, between herself and what lurked on the other side of the screen.

Her fingers found and wrapped around a spare IV stand, just as a sharp hiss came from the nightmare between herself and the door.

The dark shape suddenly leaped-

If the corridors had been a straight-away course, Celes would have been challenging Olympic speed records as she ran down them. She was following a trail of debris, tossed aside carts, broken lights. She hurdled the former, skittered around corners, bounced off of walls in her haste.

She could sense it ahead, the distinctive taint that showed up in some way she might describe as not quite hearing, not quite smell, but real and distinctive none the less.

However, she could also smell it; a musky dank acrid smell. It was growing stronger and stronger.

And to her growing horror it was leading her straight to where she most feared.

 _May's room! It's heading right for May's room! I promised Rally I'd protect her!_

Just ahead she heard a sudden shriek, sounds of a fight, then, all too quickly, silence.

Celes ran into the room, feeling a horrible sense of immediate deja-vu as she did so, fearful of what she would find-

-the nurse she'd left with May, held aloft, her neck and head in the grip of the Bug standing in the room. Blood streamed from the woman's head, a barely recognizable as human wail of agony pouring from the nurse-

Shattered equipment lay about the feet of the drone, a torn privacy screen hanging to one side, a badly bent IV pole-stand thrown to one side.

Behind them, Celes could see life support gear, the recumbent still form of May visible on the bed.

The Bug, sensing the Hybrid's entrance into the room, whirled at the sense of something strange, something that darkly sparked with hive-death. It hiss-roared in challenge, the weakly struggling woman still swinging in its grip like a rag doll.

"GRRRAAARRHHHHH!" Anger and something inhuman brought out an answering growl from Celes.

Celes slid forward, aiming to position herself where she could get a clean shot at the drone, or if not, be in a better position to grapple with it.

A part of Celes' mind, not immediately concerned eyeing the Bug, or with fear for her friend's life, gibbered. _Wrestling a BUG?! Are you actually contemplating going hand to hand with this thing?! ARE YOU INSANE?!_

However, another part of her mind wasn't listening. _Let's EAT this bitch!_

Not that she noticed, or particularly cared, but Celes' skin was darkening, muscles rippling under the uniform as she SHIFTED.

Maes Hughes had arrived on the scene, pushing through the crowd just in time to see Celes run off from the Bug kill. As much as he wanted to follow, he made some sense of the dozens of frantic accounts of what had happened here, and realized what had happened. He quickly rallied what personnel he could and set off to find the entry point of this particular incursion,

Several of his deputized and armed volunteers behind him, Hughes dashed down the way the Bug had evidentially come, frantically checking doors as he ran along, caught between running incautiously headlong into possible ambush and cautiously crawling forward from cover to cover when every moment might mean the difference between life and death.

It was on the fifth door down that they hit paydirt. Or rather a large blood trail.

A quick glance inside showed the shutters on the windows flapping unsecured inwards from a shattered window. A spidery(and all too familiar-looking, for Hughes' peace of mind)Xenomorph just climbing inside, clawed feet quishing in the crimson gruel on the floor that Hughes, with a sick realization, identified as being human remains.

The realization didn't stop him from immediately putting three rounds from his pistol into the skull of the monster before it could clear the window.

With a screech the headless mankiller collapsed to the floor.

Almost choking on the acid stench of the dying monster, its blood eating into the plastic carpeting and curling the floor tiles, Hughes stepped around the Bug corpse, keeping a bead on the gaping window, while avoiding touching the acidic splatter. Behind him he could sense the armed volunteers crowding into the room, one holding a combat shotgun from Miss Vincent's stores.

"Clements! Cover us! Timmons, Harvey! Pull this thing out of the way and then help me get the shutters closed!"

The other men rushed to comply, the shotgunner's hands not trembling TOO much as he held aim at the open window, while the other men rushed to pull the dead Bug out of the way, overcoming their fear and revulsion of touching the abomination, then push the shutters back into place and reinforce them with whatever they could find.

Hughes dared for a moment to look out as he put his shoulder into the shutter, pushing it back closed, ready at any moment for the sudden appearance of a rearing alien head full of gnashing teeth.

Instead, what he saw gave him pause.

"What the hell-?!"

The parking lot and lanes around the hospital were covered in chitinous, squirming, crawling, blackness that gleamed wetly in the overcast gloom. However, it was not all moving in one direction.

Bugs were pouring towards the hospital, eager to make more breaches in its defenses, but more and more were pealing off to deal with some disturbance in the rear of their ranks, Gunfire was coming in from BEHIND them, and one by one drones were dying where they shouldn't have. Sensing resistance, and therefore prey, more immediately at hand, drones were dropping back from their forward rush to surround and swarm the source of the trouble.

Still, there were enough drones climbing the sides of the hospital that the comparative few that held back would make little difference in the black-shelled tide washing up and over the human redoubt.

It would just be a matter of time, but the swarm would conquer.

It was then that the thunder rolled in. Not the low rumbles of the thundershowers that had been regularly booming in the city ever since the atmoregulators hd gone wonky; this was sharp and heralded, not another round of thunder cells, but something else atmospheric.

The air boomed with the sonic _krack!_ of the shock wave of something fairly big and flying low and very fast propagating over the landscape. Then came the howling of jets, a screech of violated air. Something dark suddenly appeared, flitted over the side of the hospital walls, paused for a moment, then, before any details could be made out about the shape, it surged back up into the gloom and vanished as quickly as it appeared.

But something smaller had dropped from the visitor. Something that fell into the parking lot.

The swarm there parted, pulling back as the shape landed with enough force to crack the pavement. Chips of concrete laced into the swarm, eliciting a hiss among those struck, before they started to sweep back around the new thing in their midst.

Ranma Saotome alighted from his skydive with barely a grunt as he touched down, his legs bouncing with the initial shock of hitting pavement, then locking as his body absorbed the energy.

Cobalt tinted dark skin, whorled with raised patterns gleamed on what flesh was visible under the remaining, adhoc body armor he wore. Eyes like molten gold lit by internal fires glowed under a diadem-like crown of raised bone and leather armor, topped by dreadlocked hair tendrils, a mass of biometallic cording writhing like a gorgon's mane.

Black claws punched through boot leather, which strained and burst as feet elongated and grew wider, touching the pavement. A tail with three rows of serrated teeth-like spines flicked behind the transformed martial artist, the curved sharks'-teeth snapping erect, while the long obsidian-black blade at the end gleamed with razor sharpness, the whole quivering like a primed spring, full of barely held-back tension.

Ranma raised his arms, more black claws growing from his hands.

 _Blades_ seemed to grow from Ranma's forearms, veins of light glowing on his skin and growing along his arms, up back into his torso. Electricity crackled in the air around him.

Ranma Saotome was ANGRY.

He'd barely had time to give Kodachi a heartfelt kiss as they passed each other on the _Beagle_ , the urgency in Nanami's call pulling him to the shuttles. He'd barely spoken to the new girl in their little clan, hadn't even gotten to know more than her name because of the emerging crisis. Hadn't even spoken to the new members of their growing little family, a family which was threatened on all sides by the damned Bugs and the Hunters that planted them! He'd missed out on cinnamon buns and sex because of the damn Bugs crashing the party!

Denied the pleasures of food and sex, Ranma was going to take pleasure in killing something. Or rather many somethings. Repeatedly. Violently.

NOW.

The Piranha lifted off from the impound lot far more gracefully than any speeder or shuttle. The powerful racing engines designed for maximum stability and top speed kept the craft rock steady in the gusting winds. The mother and son stuffed into co-pilot seat did nothing to distract from the almost limit less sense of freedom Rally got as the racer rocked skyward. For as she pulled away from the world all of her troubles seemed to fall away, no crazy Russian assassins, Italian drug lords or blood thirsty aliens. Rally wanted to see the sun. Her concussed head making impulsive decisions pulled the racer into a vertical climb. The almost painful acceleration was almost too much to bear as the racer pushed five g's Trista winced and wondered just what Rally was doing. In a moment it was over. The sleek craft broke into the upper atmosphere. Sunshine came through the thick windows. The blinding light off the clouds looked like something out of a religious artwork. Without the gusts of wind or rampant upward thrust the Piranha seemed eerily still in the upper atmosphere.

Simon was having the time of his life. He had been too young to really remember the trip to Mudpie but this was something else. He cheered, "Again, again!"

Rally smiled a bit she almost felt completely free for a moment. Her eyes scanned the endless expanse of clouds as she took a slow breath she whispered, "When this is over we can do this again."

The racer's nose dipped down as their descent began. The sleek craft slowly began to pick up speed once again as it descended back through the clouds. The engines vaporizing any water that passed through her wake. Enhanced optics came online as the canopy darkened. The murky light of storm covered city turned into a clear day as Rally zoomed in on the hospital. She picked out the two shuttles on approach. The lenses moved past the incoming craft to the roof tops and the streets below. She was muttered in surprise, "That's a lot of bugs."

A childish voice from behind her encouraged, "Bugs! Squish 'em with the hyper cannon Rally!"

Rally quietly thought, _"Oh, I wish I had a hyper cannon right about now."_ She knew the thousand or so rounds in the salvaged gun strapped to the wing would do little more than annoy the swarm. She just knew her first priority was getting the bugs off the side of the building

A quiet realization came to Trista as she saw the xenomorph quickly encroaching onto the hospital and the reality of the problem hit her. A voice from the seat in front of her confidently comforted her, "Hold on tight."

"Rrrraaaallllyyyy!" Trista screamed as the Piranha broke the sound barrier.

The grand architect of this exceptional plan bit her lip a bit. Her target area was small. Too close to the hospital and she would most likely rip off every shutter and shatter every window with her pass. Too far away and the shock wave would do little more than disorient the human defenders. Most of her calculations were based on guess work that was becoming surprisingly accurate thanks to her hybrid brain.

Enraged thrashing turned into a fluid grace as Nanami moved around her attackers. Her tail lashed out with precise strikes cutting through their hardened skin and damaging the tendons and tissue beneath. As the endless swarmed closed in on her furious dance of death more and more of her clothing disintegrated with every damaging blow. Then she felt it. An ominous rumble that served as a preamble for something big. Nanami leapt over the nearest bug her tail cutting into the bugs central nervous system as she moved. Her head swiveled for a moment trying to pick out the newest threat. She ducked around yet another rushed attack her hands slamming into the armored alien bodies with enough force to press them back.

As the closest bug rolled back into the swarm she looked up and saw it. There was no mistaking the soft blue glow of a plasma trail. Nanami turned and looked up and down the wall. She vaulted over the nearest bug and sprinted towards the door she spotted. Biology may have been her strong suit but a college education had beat into her head the most basic physic and she did not want to be caught in the back wash of that ship. Her hybrid legs lashed out at the door handle her axe kick knocking the handle completely off. She pulled the door open kicking away two more bugs as she slid into the opening.

Clawed fingers grasped at the steel panel as Nanami looked or anything to secure it with. As the rumbling grew closer her claws gripped the broken door and a nearby pipe. She tightly shut her eyes and waited.

The thundering crack washed over her like stun grenade. The massive displacement of air first pushed against the door then the pursuing vacuum tried to rip it open. Her claws tore into the pipe and door as she fought to keep the door shut. The psychic back wash of the bug being incinerated in Rally's thrusters was just as glorious as the escape from the research station. She just wished she didn't have a stage pass to the event. Nanami moved to secure the door as quickly as she could. She knew there were bugs up stairs that had to be dealt with.

The almost cooked hybrid's eye twitched a bit as she realized just who was probably flying that racer. Over the psychic link Nanami shouted, "Rally!"

The blue and white racer curved around as it's air brakes, flaps and reverse thruster bleed off as much speed as it could. She would have had to absolutely red line any of the surplus crap civil defense had to get that kind of speed but her racer was comfortably withing the green. Rally looked back at a woozy Trista and an ecstatic Simon. Trista was having flash back of an incredibly bad date involving a CMC marine, half a handle of hooch and a Raptor interceptor. While Simon seemed to think that this was just endless fun.

Turning around for a second pass Rally doubled checked the hastily attached auto cannon. All the checked turned green as she carefully lined up for a pass along the swarmed hospital wall. Rally quickly picked out a bug that was slowly standing up again. Her finger squeezed down on the trigger. She winced as the shells sprayed wildly down range. Their accuracy left much to be desired. Rally resisted her perfectionist urge to calibrate the cannon then and there as she launched another burst at the downed bugs and new roaches attempting to cross the road to the street.

An irritated voice poked at Rally over the psychic link, "Rally!"

"Bit busy!" She replied with equal irritation. If she could just tighten up the lateral stabilizer she would get so much better accuracy. She fired off another burst as her racer closed in on the hospital. Rally's train of though was quickly broken, "Oh shit!"

Loa checked each corner of the roof once the deafening crack of the sonic boom had washed over them. All of the defenders were disoriented and many showed signs of ruptured ear drums. He looked up at the sky to see the shuttles had returned yet again. He clicked his radio on, "Send up the next group!"

A few seconds passed and a surge of people and supplies came rushing out of the roof top door.

The synthetic barked out, "Watch the walls! If it didn't kill you it didn't kill them."

He watched as the racer came around again taking shots at the bugs on the ground. Loa broke cover and raced to the edge where he had seen Dr. Jinnai go over. He pointed his rifle over the edge checking for any signs of the doctor. All he found was several dead bugs and a few more unconscious ones. A quick burst remedied the twitching ones. Not seeing a body or any signs of her death he quickly moved back to his position covering the door and the civilians moving into the shuttles.

Rally circled the hospital doing her best to knock off the roaches as they crawled up the side of hospital. She timed her shots carefully and made good use of the racers engines to cook any targets of opportunity. Even with an impressive kill count it wasn't enough to turn back a swarm.

An irritated voice belonging to Nanami poked at Rally over the psychic link, "Rally!"

"Bit busy!" She replied with equal irritation. If she could just tighten up the lateral stabilizer she would get so much better accuracy. She fired off another burst as her racer closed in on the hospital, "Oh shit!"

A mass of yellow and black tumbled out of a fourth story window. Rally dialed her radio to Maes' frequency, "You got a wall breach on the forth floor."

"Damn it Rally!" He quickly moved into the hall and started checking the outer rooms, "I expect crap like this from May not you."

The blue and white racer zeroed in on another group of bugs, "This is not my fault!"

Maes quickly found the room in question. An unconscious nurse slumped into the corner and a critical care patent in the bed. He looked down at the small comatose form, "Speak of the devil."

He turned his attention to his men, "Clements, go right. Harvey, get the shutters. Timmons get them out of here."

With a careful eye Maes looked out the window. The sound of auto cannon fire let him know that Rally probably had the hole covered.

Rally mentally shouted at Celes. The hybrid had flattened the xenomorph and had managed to roll away but she was currently just lying upside down against a tree, "Wake up KITTEN!"

Celes knew very well that her anger wasn't the kind of emotion that would ever leave her. Rally, Izumi, Roy even Sig all took their time to drill into her head that anger wasn't her friend despite the strength it could give her as a child. As she watched the bug hold the nurse's crippled body over May's bed all that seemed to melt away as the beast roar it's head. While a mere human could not will their muscles larger, talons to grow out of their nails or carbon fiber razors to grow along their skeleton Celes could. Her anger gave her more power than she could ever attain as a human. However, as she gave into that anger however, her very brain changed.

In her rage Celes pushed more changes into her body than the others had in such a short time. For her haste she paid a price none of the others had yet to experience as her brain moved into a kind of triage. Higher functions receded as even her enhanced biology couldn't handle the sudden surge of new nerves and tissue she forced her self to grow. For every bit of muscle and armor she grew, the supporting biology had to be grown as well and all of it needed to be tied into her brain. A brain that didn't changed nearly as fast as her body could.

Her talons tore into the cheep prefabricated floor for traction as she demanded more speed. The xenomorph abandoned its prey to face the threat only to find the smaller creature tearing towards it and lifting it up off the ground. As the black form flailed uselessly it impacted the outer wall. With her massive boost in strength punching through the reinforced glass and the shutters behind was a trivial task.

Sharpened carbon fiber blades cut past the exoskeleton into the soft flesh of the bug. Her movements were like a butcher each stroke designed to cut tendon and bone neatly removing each limb at the joint. The bug did not even live long enough to feel it's skull impact the ground under the hybird's mass.

However as Celes impacted the ground her hybrid form found a path to roll away it's momentum as she slammed into a tree. Her head slammed into a tree as her tunnel vision was

Rally hovered over her downed protege in her racer as she screamed over that nebulous mental link Nanami had created. As the form began to move on the ground an annoyed hiss came back across the link.

The determined gun runner scaled, "Seras Victoria! You stupid back water mudder. I know I taught you better than that."

The creature stood up eyeing the racer hovering not more than seventy five feet away. It sent an angry hiss across the mental link.

Rally glared at the girl, "Don't you dare hiss at me brat!" The racer lunged forward seventy feet in an instant.

Leaping back the mentally with drawn Celes bolted into the nearest shop running away from the nearest threat.

Cursing over the link Rally focused on Nanami, "Celes is hurt."

Ranma had faced the monsters known as 'xenomorphs' before.

The first time he'd lost, his martial arts skills no match for inhuman quantity. It hadn't kept him from being implanted and dying a horrible death.

The second time, he'd fared better, but against a relatively small number of Bugs in the Repository's soon-to-be-vaporized hangar bay. That short lethal combat had been educational, teaching him a lot about his new existence; how his new body did and didn't respond to the prompts given to it by memory. He'd been ultimately successful in that he and Kodachi had gotten out alive, but it had been a near thing. Ranma didn't like near things if his life, and the lives of the people he protected, were at stake. He'd set out Mudpie to train himself back up, when he could, to a higher level of confidence.

Ranma might have been hindered by trying to apply old tricks he could no longer perform in his new incarnation, but that didn't mean he couldn't adapt; flexibility was the key to his success and his family school of martial arts. Accomplish a training exercise right the first time? Fine? Screw it up? Either do it over again until you get it right, or figure a way to make the screwup into a viable new move. EVERYTHING was training. If he couldn't perform his more esoteric abilities and attacks, good old brute force would do just as well, and he had learned brute force from some of the best.

And he wasn't ENTIRELY without some special tricks he'd learned with his new body.

Forearms glowed with ionization, neo-mitochondria pouring out energy in a torrent would shame terrestrial electric eels. It wasn't chi, not as he understood it, but it seemed to respond to some of the same prompts, and that was good enough for Ranma. As long as it WORKED.

The air shimmered in front of him as he moved to meet the onrushing swarm more than halfway. A large Bug leapt at him for the takedown.

Ranma blocked with one arm, out-held arm catching the Bug in the throat. Millimeters away from flesh-on-flesh contact, the Bug's neck caught an intense localized wave of plasma. The exotic acidic liquid compounds that made up the Bug's blood instantly boiled in their arteries, bubbling into steam.

The Bug's head exploded.

Pieces of Bug were yet to hit the ground as Ranma leaped the smoking and steaming headless corpse and meet the next two attackers, his arms describing glowing arcs

Xenomorph spine and torso parted company with each sweep. Limbs flew free like twigs in a hurricane. Silica carapace was stripped from alien bone and muscle.

The milling swarm of xenomorphs rippled as their hive consciousness began to make manifest what passed for fear in them. The trepidation that had earlier marked their regard of the One Who Might Be a Queen now came back with a vengeance with the appearance of this strange new Other that they couldn't touch.

The swarm tried to break and run, retreat to reconsider its position.

Ranma wasn't about to let it.

He tore into the fleeing drones

All the while moving closer and closer to the feelings of pure and familiar feminine rage that he could sense like a gasoline fire.

Nanami considered herself a civilized person. Given a choice, she'd use the tools of a civilized tool-using society over her bare hands and feet to accomplish something.

That meant she'd prefer the ranged lethality of a CMC puls-rifle to deal with Bugs, or the hot purging flame of a flamer, or the quick chaotic violence of a grenade launcher. These things were civilized. It took science and ingenuity to make these things, and thus they were not the work of barbarians.

That was BEFORE she had been Hybridized. That process had left her with a lot of pent-up anger, anger that had breached the wall between civilization and instinctual barbarism on several occasions. Pent-up anger that had gotten her into trouble afterwards, with some regrets over her behavior, that had led to more pent-up fear and anger. Her encounters with the thugs of Ceti Alpha VII's back alleys had shown her what happened when her inner beast got loose on other human beings.

Now, however, she was surrounded by an enemy out of her deepest nightmares, one that she had bent all the science and ingenuity she had come to learn and acquire to destroy.

This wasn't the panicked flight from the Repository, her nightmares nipping at her heels as she and her new companions raced an even more threatening countdown to destruction.

This was a defensive action, a holding action, a stand. Here on Ceti Alpha VII, on a street in a nameless city on a planet called Mudpie, Nanami Jinnai drew her line, between the humans she'd vowed to protect, and the nightmares she'd vowed to exterminate. Between the light of civilization she'd sworn to keep safe, and the chittering, consuming, darkness, she would use every measure at her disposal to fight. That she wasn't fighting at a remove, via cell sampler, test tube, and eyedropper, didn't make difference. In a way, in fact, facing them head-on was MORE satisfying on a visceral level.

She'd emptied her guns, then thrown them away, but she'd found another gun on the ground, likely dropped from the roof by some hapless and now deceased Security volunteer. But the gun had survived, was fully loaded, and in Nanami's hands, which suited her perfectly.

Bugs flew apart in pieces as she walked burst-fire into their shells. If they came too close, or she hadn't enough time to reload, she'd kick and punch and lash with her tail. Reaching claws were smacked aside, spearing tails sidestepped, biting jaws broken.

She might not be the martial arts equal of either Ranma or Kodachi, but Ranma's comparison of Nanami to Akane held true on at least one point; the girl's anger gave her fighting skills a quality of their own.

Her danger senses highlighting her xenomorphic targets quite adequately in the gloom, Nanami walked down the street in front of the besieged hospital, executing any Bug within range.

One particularly large Bug jumped her, bowling her over, pinning her to the ground, its slavering jaws inches from her head. The smell of fetid alien death filled her nostrils as she glared at the blind, malicious, creature trying to bite her face off.

"I'm not afraid of you..." Nanami bit out.

Her feet kicked up, locked on to the Bug's pelvis, her hands hooked into its ribbed chest, her tail coiled under her backside. Then all that tension let go, as she used her tail to spring up, kicking hard into the creature, even as her own claws dug in.

With a crackling tear, the big Bug flew backwards into the darkness, but its chestbones remained in Nanami's grip.

"-ANY MORE!" Nanami screamed.

She rolled aside, tossing away the Bug breastbone, more to protect her gear from the falling shower of acidic ichor more than anything else. She grabbed up her dropped rifle and sprang to her feet.

Around her came a hissing, circling movement. A half-dozen Drones emerged from he shadows, but having sensed what happened to the previous attackers, now seemed leery of approaching too quickly.

Nanami lunged at one, snapping her jaws in a bite, and the xenomorph stepped back, hissing in surprise. Nanami almost laughed; _Guess they're not genetically used to prey that fights back!_

"Okay, who's _NEXT?!_ "

From behind a hastily barricaded window, several scared-shitless security guards stared at the confrontation taking place outside. One moment the Bugs had been about to batter their back way inside, and the next they'd pulled back to confront...they weren't sure what that was...in the street outside. A dark-skinned, red-haired, golden-eyed apparition with a tail like a Bug, but who swore and fought like a Marine, and who had taken out over a dozen Bugs in less than a minute. And who seemed eager and ready to take on as many more.

Others had the fortune, or misfortune, of being in a position to see the OTHER metallic-fleshed, blade-tailed, combat-monster making its way in the other direction towards the first, scything its way with glowing arms through the swarming Bugs like some infernal reaping machine going across a field ripe to be mowed.

Loa, pausing only long enough to reload and try to figure out where the next attack would come, saw the mass of Bugs below come apart as if carved by arcs of horizontal lightning. Only lightning didn't punch and kick.

He'd have loved to stay and watch, but he was aware that other Bugs were still in motion, and that the hospital's security had been breached below. He still had work to do.

Besides, he had the feeling he would face the whatever it was soon enough.

From where she flew above the besieged hospital, Rally had a prime position from which to observe what happened below, when she wasn't busy blasting groups of Bugs that were approaching the building.

Through the common mental link that she shared with her new 'kindred', she could sense the already familiar acerbic taste of Nanami's personality as she dealt with the problem at hand. Nanami hadn't forgotten what Rally had just asked of her, but she also had to attend to more immediate matters, like the crawlers running all around her. And Nanami was doing just that, with a viciousness that bordered and skipped along the feral nastiness that Celes had given into. However, Rally could sense that it was that very vinegary personality of Nanami's that kept her focused.

The OTHER personality, though, made that focus pale in comparison.

Rally had had only passing contact with the one she'd heard called 'Ranma', had gotten quick impressions of fear, befuddlement, and frustration. She had wondered if those were personality traits, or a condition endemic to ALL male Hybrids...until she realized that so far there was only ONE male Hybrid. And that had started another chain of thoughts about what it portended, so many females and only one male...

Now, however, she was feeling the male's mind up close, blazing in her perceptions like a refinery fire, roaring in her senses. Anger, but reined in tight, fear, but for others, frustration, but shunted aside...and in its place was a focus, a sense of total concentration that felt COLD, like ancient blue ice. Cold, cold, RAGE unleashed.

And curiously, there was also an undercurrent of JOY, of satisfaction. Particularly when that cold rage spiked.

Rally spared a glance from blazing a Bug approaching a ripped open window when she felt a spike of that coldness. She caught an impression of a vertical COLUMN of Bugs cascading into the air,accompanied by a mental collective scream as they were all simultaneously dismembered.

No grenade did that, no chain gun or plasma burner.

This Ranma guy was apparently doing it all with his _hands and feet_.

He was just ripping through a horde of some of Humanity's worst enemies all on his own. And WINNING.

Rally tried to remember what Nanami had told her in the hurried 'xenohybrid for dummies' talk she'd given on their trip to the hospital. This Ranma guy was some sort of resurrected Old Earth martial artist in the wayback.

 _Holy Shit! The guy's some sort of combat monster! How much of it, though, is this guy's skill and how much is from this freakin' genetic power-up Celes and I got?!_

As her flier screamed in a tight bank around the hospital grounds, banking momentarily away from the carnage on the ground, Rally realized that she had a lot more to think about.

But first things first, as another group of Bugs who were approaching the hospital from a blind side came into the brackets of her sights.

Clawed hands grabbed and twisted limbs out of sockets, even as arcing blue around them shriveled alien flesh, burned alien muscle to char. A barbed tail caught in exoskeletal ribs, pulling and hurling a flailing alien predator into its onrushing kin. Clawed feet kicked, snapping spines and removing entire sections of alien anatomy.

The swarm dispersed, melting away from the slayer, but a quick leap suddenly put the Other in the thick of the swarm again, shredding carapace and sinew with ease. Another bound, and the killer was in FRONT of the fleeing swarm. As Bugs suddenly stopped and backpedaled, the whirlwind followed them, bringing them down as they tangled with each other.

Ranma's tail suddenly blurred into near invisibility, a sharp crack of displaced air ripping as the end of the tail went supersonic. The speeding tip of the appendage might be nearly invisible, but not its effects; several xenomorphs just disintegrated as their bodies were sliced and diced.

Another xenomorph turned and started fleeing, only to be jerked back as something grabbed its two elongated shoulder spikes. Using them as handholds, Ranma threaded the loop and came up the monster's spine with a kick that caught it in the back of its elongated head, before letting go. For a moment Bug head and Hybrid were flying in line, before the former smacked and bounced several dozen yards past its headless body, and the latter rolled and skipped into another group of Bugs, who shortly thereafter ceased to exist.

It was then that several of the Bugs fleeing one slayer ran into the OTHER.

Danger to one side, danger to the other. IMMEDIATE danger all around.

That was all the warning the Bug got before it got grabbed from either side as it attempted to leap clear.

One set of hands attempted to twist the Bug's head off.

The other set attempted to punch the Bug's upper torso into the pavement.

Neither movement went off as planned. The Bug had a moment to scream and screech as its head and spine were ripped out of its body.

The intended objective of the actions was still accomplished though.

And now golden eyes met each others' gaze across a distance of few inches.

Ranma looked at Nanami. Nanami stared back at the male Hybrid, Bug gore dripping from her, the ragged remains of her clothing hanging from her dusky frame. One breast hung bare, a set of parallel scars already fading on its bronzed metallic curve. A flap of scalp hung down one side of her head, but was, even as he watched, pulling itself back into place, the skin knitting back together. She was simultaneously the most beautiful and most frightening thing he'd ever seen.

"Nanami?"

"You're late." Nanami blandly stated as she stepped by him, shouldering him aside-

-then reached back, grabbed him by the shoulders, and pulled him into a tonsil-cleaning kiss.

THEN she smacked him.

"No nookie until we finish this and I say so." Nanami breathed as she turned to face the darkness.

"Ma'am, yes, ma'am." Ranma groaned in frustration as he turned to find more Bugs to squash. SOMETHING was going to pay and pay dearly.

Finding the parking lot rapidly emptying of easily reachable prey, the two Hybrids turned and looked at the hospital, where the Bugs still swarmed. Overhead, a streamlined dart of a craft flitted around the building, pulses of man-made lightning streaking down with methodical regularity to strike and burn knots of Bugs. Further above, they could make out the shark shapes of the shuttles coming in on the roof.

Then they felt something else. Something by now familiar. Something feral.

The two Hybrids looked at each other, a common thought passing between them.

" _Celes."_

As one, the two Hybrids turned towards the perimeter of the hospital grounds.

Though it was late morning, the rain had only slightly disipated. The initial front may have passed, but on Mudpie that meant that the weather was only taking a breather before starting up again full open taps. As it was, the streets were slick, the gutters were flooding, and the canals were raging torrents. This was only a lull in the bad weather; already what few forecast systems remained operational were telling of more storm cells shaping up and ready to march across the continent, now that the artificial weather control seemed to be mysteriously offline. For now it was just miserable drizzle and blanketing fog that hid the distances, and the occasional hard wind that drove that same fog throughout the colonial city.

Anybody observing the scene might notice the silence, the lack of movement around the streets, and might have figured everybody had elected to stay home on such a miserable dreary day.

Anybody who had survived the last night would know better.

But at least somebody was stirring in part of town, and as the young Hunter limped out of the shadows, he was grateful to a degree for the silence and lack of activity on the streets.

His trek across the ooman community had been of necessity a slow one, hampered by both his own injuries and by the subsequent need to avoid unnecessary combat. He'd seen plenty of Hard Meat sign about, but had managed to avoid being spotted by them. For some reason they seemed to be flowing back the way he'd come, towards the ooman structure where the survivors had forted up, as oomans were prone to do. Their distraction had allowed him to slip back in the other direction, hoping to encounter a hunting party of his own people.

So far, he hadn't encountered one. That angered and frustrated him. Tired as he was, but remaining cautious and wary of the shadows, he trudged along in the unrelenting downpour towards the spaceport, where he figured his fellow Hunters(those who weren't stalking the plains outside the city) were most likely congregating, in anticipation of hunting the better-equipped oomans there.

That's when he saw it; a battered-looking ooman air cushion vehicle parked beside a residence.

A very _familiar_ ooman vehicle.

Had Yautja anatomy allowed it, the young Blooded's eyebrow would have developed a severe twitch.

As it was, being a (young) professional at this sort of thing, he immediately fell into a guard posture, remaining weapons ready. The vehicle's driver might be nearby, which might present an opportunity for some trophy-taking, though the young Hunter had other priorities in mind.

Before approaching the ooman craft, the Yautja quickly searched around it, looking for any sign that its occupant(s) might be coming back.

His quick search of the area revealed little. An abandoned residency bloc, signs of hurried packing and evacuation, but no oomans. Nothing.

Satisfied that prey wasn't near, nor that he was about to be walloped by some ooman machine coming out of nowhere(he quickly glanced up into the drizzle just in case), the Hunter cracked his knuckles, approached the hovercar, and set to work.

Though feared and better known for their predatory natures and dedication to the hunt, the Yautja were also topnotch technicians. It helped when pursuing prey that frequently hid behind locked doors and security systems. The young Yautja proved the value of an extensive technical education by quickly hot-wiring Winry's dragster.

Minutes later, the howl of hoverfans split the drizzle as the battered air cushion vehicle screamed down the roadways of the darkened Human community again, but this time no human was at the controls.

His dreadlocks streaming behind him in the slipstream, the young Hunter had to make up for lost time if the Elders were to be informed of the Abomination.

On a little electric utility cart tucked away in a corner of the -Beagle's- cargo bay, a small light lit up on a portable radio console tucked in among various tools and knickknacks. It was not noticed.

Not far away, somebody WAS noticing something.

"That's strange..."

"WHAT'S strange?! We're surrounded by Bugs and Hunters! Strange things are NOT good-"

"Bugs, maybe, but the security sensors aren't picking up any Hunters."

"What? Are you sure? Those bastards are awfully hard to track!"

"I had a pretty good bead on several sitting outside the security perimeter a minute or so ago, once we'd flushed the refuge of any of them. But now they're gone."

"You sure about that? They just didn't adjust their personal cloaks once they figured you were watching them? We got shit-all for sensors-"

"Actually we didn't. One part of the budget that DIDN'T get cheese-pared, I think because it came from higher up. The passive sensors, after all, watch the spaceport and company property. No, those guys out there pulled back or slunk away."

"Any idea where they went?"

"Not a clue...just not in towards us."

"Well, I doubt they just decided to up and leave the planet, leaving us alone."

"With the Bugs."

"With the damn Bugs. I better let the Chief know about this."

There was a muffled flash through the midmorning drizzle, then a sudden BOOM! rolled in over the ad-hoc battlements of the spaceport.

Officer Jean Havoc looked up from under the rain shelter he was manning along with several other defenders, saw a patch of dark roiling cloud that was darker than the rest, undershot with shades of orange, and smiled a rueful grin.

One of his companions, a machinist, weekend warrior and now full-time wall guard, saw his superior officer's smirk. "What was THAT, sir?"

"The refinery. Before we left, we managed to throw together some simple boobytraps. Nothing too elaborate and I didn't expect them to do much good, but looks like somebody blundered into at least one of them. Bug or hunter, I don't know. Doubt if I'll ever know, but I hope they enjoyed the molotov cocktails."

In his mind's eye, Havoc could picture the drums of volatile lubricants exploding and burning, throwing flammable grease-soaked packing waste around, knocking over the drums of caustic solvents, and hopefully splashing anything else nearby. True, the refinery didn't process fuels or other spectacularly touchy products, but there was enough in the way of acids, bases, and other processing chemicals that he imagined that a nice blaze could get going.

"Of course, my ass is grass is the Company ever finds out their own Security torched the moneymaker. I don't think insurance covers that."

The corporate HQ building went up in flames as Plunder weeded his garden.

Not that anything would likely be left standing when the Marines glassed the place as surely they must, but there was no point in taking any chances of any incriminating evidence left behind, was there?

Moments before, after learning that some of his staffers, those that hadn't accompanied him on his escape ship or fled to the spaceport, had taken refuge in the corporate branch headquarters/town hall's security bunker, Plunder had used his ED's weapons to blast open the reinforced doors. Those inside who hadn't died in the initial blast, had been forced to put up a last ditch defense when a half-dozen Bugs, attracted by the noise, had arrived like vultures on Plunder's heels.

Plunder laughed as he watched the town mayor struggle with one of the survival guns in the bunker cache, just before she'd been pulled out screaming by a Bug drone. When he wasn't swatting aside the few Bugs that had taken a swipe at the ED-290, he was enjoying the looks of shock and fear as the secretaries and minor corporate functionaries that had once groveled under him were violently downsized by the Xenomorph acquisition team.

Plunder found he LIKED reducing headcount this way. No severance packages to be re-negotiated, no nondisclosure confidentiality statements to sweat, no hassles with pensions from Budgetary.

Plunder checked the ammo on his hijacked ED-290's guns; pretty low. Tearing through that bunker door had taken a lot of firepower. He might have to switch to another 'bot before long if he had to do any major cleanup.

In fact, it might not be a bad idea to do that now? But which 'bot and where?

Someplace close to the Spaceport? He figured that somebody had to have holed up there; probably the ragtag Security force that hardass Cho had been whipping into his own little private army. That old bastard was entirely too whiny, and smart, for his own good.

Or maybe where near he'd encountered that Rally woman? She seemed to be in a hurry to get someplace. The Hospital? The police station?

Decisions, decisions...

"Hurry it up with that!"

The work crew pushed and shoved the improvised patches into the gaps in the window, spurred to greater strength and speed as several gunshots rang out in close proximity from those men brave or foolhardy enough to stick their heads near the open window. The gunfire was reminder that there were far worse things than rain and wind outside.

What had just occurred outside may have taken the heat off those inside the hospital, but there were still many Bugs that hadn't gotten the message, or who had decided that ducking inside the warm cozy food-filled hospital was a good way to get away from the ripping, tearing, and now flying and shooting menaces that were hammering them outside. Imminent danger fueled the expertise of the crew that finally hammered, wrenched, nailed, and quick-epoxied the armored shutters back in place and braced an improvised cage of bars and paneling behind it.

Hughes and his fellow gunner stepped back as the work crew hammered the last stay in their barricade. It was a rush job, but it was the second one of the day. Hughes hoped they wouldn't have to put up any more before they were all well and away from this place.

As he stepped back, he looked at the rest of the room. It looked like a war zone, not only from the battle that had took place, but from the hurried evacuation that had taken place in its aftermath. May's bed and life support thicket had disappeared, the still comatose girl and the brutalized nurse having been taken away to someplace deeper in the hospital. He'd have to check up on both later. That got him thinking-

A thought that the man next to him seemed to take up as he nervously checked the action on his weapon, and began muttering half to himself and half to the authority figure standing nearby. "Goddamn...Mister Hughes? Did you see that? Those things were fucking swarming US and then...then...those..."

Hughes cut the man off; "Yeah, I saw it too."

"What WERE those things?"

"I have an idea WHO they were-" Hughes' eyes narrowed as he heard the buzz of a certain well-armed racing shuttle come flying around the building. "-And we're going to have some words about it with no dodging this time. I think it's time somebody gave me some EXPLANATIONS."

He just hoped that he survived the explaining.

"WHOOOWWEEEEE! DO IT AGAIN, GIRRRLLL!"

Rally grinned at the shout-out from the backseat as another cluster of dark shelled monsters exploded in her sights.

"I'll do it as many times as it takes, munchkin, but I'm kinda hoping to run out of targets so I can get you and your mum to safety!"

As Rally turned the corner, looking for more targets to burn, she felt a chill run through her spine. It wasn't the feeling she got from the Bugs; no, this was worse.

It was the sort of feeling she got when she was caught doing something she shouldn't have, and the parent, principle, boss, or superior officer got that look in their eye; _You got some explaining to do, young lady!_

Bugs and Hunters you could fight, or run from, but there were just some things you couldn't shoot or flee from.

 _Nanami; you better find Celes FAST because I got the feeling I'm going to need some HELP soon!_

Nanami straightened up momentarily as she caught an errant feeling of danger from Rally. She waited a moment to see if there was anything else, but she could still see the predator-shape of Rally's ship winging around the high-rise hospital, still flying steady and torching stray bugs. The volume of firing from the rooftop seemed to have diminished too.

Whatever it was, it would have to wait. _Sorry, girl, you're on your own on this one, whatever it is._

She then turned to follow Ranma as they prowled into the nearby abandoned buildings in search of where ever Celes had scampered off to.

As Rally cut across the skies her choices seemed less and less a choice. With Celes, Nanami and Ranma outside of the hospital the bugs pushed against the soft shell of the hospital's defenses. Aluminum doors and siding meant to keep people and the elements out crumbled like tissue paper as bipedal xenomorphs used their genetic memory against their progenitors. Under ground service passages connecting the various buildings to the electrical and data grid of the city served as back doors to the hold-out now that their was no reason to fear the occupants of the structure.

A desperate scramble began as more people and equipment were forced into the transports with every load. The last of the hold outs gathered in the highest defensible room in the building. On the sixth floor of seventh the last of the med techs, patients and conscripts waited for the elevator to the roof to be unloaded and return.

"Fall back, get out of the stairwell!" Voices cut in between gunshots and battle cries. A panicked nurse had to be pulled away from the unresponsive elevator button as the cooler heads forced the group back. They moved frantically aside as one man lit a rag stuffed into a bottle of hand sanitizer. He hurled the gelatinous alcohol into the stairwell halting the bug's advance with the small conflagration.

The flickering of lights and the subsequent darkness let Maes know the bugs had come to finish their hunt. As the emergency lights kicked in a voice shouted, "No good! They are above us!"

Maes' exhausted head spun. As he looked at the crude map of the hospital denoting evacuation routes. He looked at the two dozen people crowed around him and made a call, "Harvey, take point, were going down the hall at to the left. If we can get to cryo we should be safe."

A general mummer swept through the small pocket of people before Huges barked out, "Now!"

A stocky man moved quickly into the hall leading the advance. The darkened corridors definitively became bug territory in the barely illuminated halls. The nurses and doctors followed suit quickly pushing their patients into the hall as the mad dash began.

Dr. Winchester gave the officer a look as they were the last two to leave the stair well, "We'll be trapped in those vaults."

A man's screams were shortly drowned out by the sound of gun fire. The doctor quickly fell into step as they ran for the vaults. The hospital's defenders reaping a small measure of vengeance against the swarm as they put down the offending drone. A bipedal bug lunged out of the opposing corridor to meet a spray of lead. As the bug collapsed backwards spraying it's acidic blood into the air Maes barked out, "Move!"

Grabbing the injured and roughly tossing them onto the already occupied gurneys the last of the hospital survivors ran through the darkened hallways. A young teen's voice shouted, "In! In! In!"

The fourteen year old kid nervously gripped the seemingly giant SMG pointing it down the hall praying that he wouldn't have to shoot it.

Maes' stood at the open door desperately giving out his last orders, "Loa, get your men out of here. We're cut off and about to lock ourselves in the cryo..." The transmission abruptly cut out as the sound of gun fire filled the frequency.

Rally's racer came to a halt on the roof. She looked at the half full transports waiting to leave and heard Maes' order. Rally gathered up her shaken and nauseous passengers putting them in the nearest shuttle. She looked at the roof elevator then back at Loa, "Go."

The synthetic looked at the tiny woman and then at the two half full shuttles. He paused for but a moment then ordered, "Get everyone in the second shuttle."

The cold rain served to put an extra hustle in the steps of the evacuees that even the looming threat of a bug swarm couldn't. Pausing in the rain Rally grabbed her head. A painful rush of instincts crashed upon her. The warring genetic memories of everything stuff into her by Celes' little injection reached slammed into the front of her mind. As she grasped her head she roared against the conflicting urges to hide, flee, hunt and breed. Rally's narrowed as she stomped to over to the roof top door.

The heat of the shuttle engines washed over the roof as the wind blew the launch exhaust away. Loa quickly followed carrying as much ammo as he could for the heavy machine gun. Looking at the tiny woman the combat synthetic shook his head. Even if his master was in peril survival protocols clearly outweighed this course of action. As the woman recklessly moved forward he considered trying to convince her to reconsider. Rally growled at the door, she did not have time to bugger off and play brood mare to some short, brainless, skill-less, high school jock! Her hand hit the release bar as she knocked the door open.

Rally's eyes widened as a black and bloody carapace dropped down in front of her and hissed. All confusion melted away as her adrenaline washed across her mind and body. With inhuman speed she brought the stock of her rifle around tearing it through the bug's face. The facets of her psyche found themselves forcibly aligned themselves. Rally released and her barely controlled self more shifted than she realized. Dusky indian skin gave way to a blackened hybrid carapace with subtle coppery highlights. A clawed hand released the grip of the rifle as fingers grew claw like talons in place of nails as she proceeded to finish her kill. The quick but brutal attack left her feeling oddly satisfied.

A hint of smoke hit Rally's nostrils as she finished off the xenomorph. She casually tossed the dead body aside clearing the door way. A current of warm air escaped the stair well into the cold rainy air. The thought of the building on fire only enraged her further. She turned to the synthetic, "Come on."

Warm air and faint wisps of smoke filled the stair well as Rally and Loa descended into the darkened hospital. The scent of charred xenomoph flesh led her to the wounded bug still in the stairwell. A single bullet remedied the bug of its terminal condition. She recognized the fire danger and quickly darted out of the stair well and grabbed a fire extinguisher. Spraying down as she sprayed down the smoldering walls her head turned to Loa.

The combat hardened synthetic nodded as he moved into position. As Rally pulled the door open the big gun swept across the room looking for any bugs. A deafening thunder followed as one hundred rounds tore across the open space. While lacking the inhuman precision Rally employed, close was good enough. Hot metal found home in The shear volume of fire felled a half dozen bugs before they could even react to the presence. The two brazenly advanced into enemy territory.

Maes was surprised as his radio crackled to life. He expected to be forted up in here for a long time. The vault was designed to contain any accidental coolant leak and insulate the thirty or so stasis chambers from the rest of the hospital. The thick metal doors would provide an air tight barrier for his hold outs. The draw back of the thick metal walls was that there was no way his radio would cut through the interference. A familiar female voices crackled out, "Hughes you still alive in there?"

The officer pulled the radio out of his pocket he considered just what to say. He clicked the button on the communicator, "Vincent, where are you?"

Rally and Loa cautiously advanced forward as she replied, "Sixth level, looks like I'm near the med scanners."

Clicking the transmit button again the former intelligence officer asked, "What's going on out there?"

She considered the question and the question underneath the question. Easing up to the cryo ward's doors she sat down on the ground. The slithering in the darkness seemed to have retreated to the lower levels of the building, "How is May?"

He predicted the question as a possible response. It was more likely that Rally would put her adopted family ahead of her own well being. Looking over the tired escapees he answered honestly, "We stuffed her into one of the last rounds of shuttles."

Loa watched as the female creature let out a held breath. She had reverted to her primary state again. Facial analysis indicated a mixture of relief and frustration. Rally shook her head, "How many people do you have in there?"

Hughes avoided the question, "What happened to Celes?"

The exhausted girl sounded like an exhausted girl rather than the in control fearless bounty hunter that many on Alpha Ceti had come to respect, "I don't know she hit her head in the fall. She ran off acting..." Her voice trailed off as she censored herself.

Maes arched an eyebrow as he looked at the last of his security guards. The nervous men and women were at wits end. The ever level headed Dr. Winchester walked over to him, "We shouldn't keep her waiting out there. Who knows what could try to attack the girl."

Mr. Hughes opened his mouth then shut it. His eyes narrowed on the doctor then softened. This was Rally they were talking about. Just about everybody in the security forces knew her work. The entire colony knew about her racing. Her racing was what got her ship impounded in the first place. When she took second place at the New Chicago Sprint Cup last year they practically threw her a parade. He shook his head trying to fit all the pieces together and put it into perspective, "Come with me."

The doctor did a double take as Maes spun the armored door open and stepped out into the hallway. As the two cautiously exited the cryo vaults a feminine voice greeted them with a grunt, "Hey..."

Dr. Winchester looked up and down the hall awaiting a swift death. Instead all he saw was the corpses of two xenomorphs and one woman with a rifle sitting in a chair as if she was waiting on a doctor. In the dimly lit emergency lights the two could make out Loa at the end of the hall watching the adjoining corridor.

"Ms. Vincent." The doctor greeted Rally calmly as he watched the door shut behind him, "Are you alright?"

Rally nodded at the doctor, "Yea, I'm fine. How many are holed up in there."

Keeping his shot gun at the ready Maes answered the question, "Fifteen not counting me, the doc or the ones we managed to get into stasis."

Rally pushed her hair back as she looked at the two men. Her exhausted and worried expression spoke volumes, "Well?"

"Well how did you get back down here alive!" Maes accused point blank as his patience had reached an end. With all the odd ball facts piling up he just didn't know what conclusions to draw at this point. He wasn't about to lose his cool but he needed Ms. Vincent off balance. The barrel of the shot gun leveled at the girl sitting in the chair.

Rally considered her options for a moment. The combat load in that shot gun would probably tear a hole clear through her. While she didn't doubt Nanami had been shot in the head. She was most likely hit with a low velocity round they tended to keep in places where you didn't want bullets going through walls and punching through containment barriers. Could she evade it? Four meters between him and her, she could take him before he even knew she drew. No, that wasn't an option. She found her voice, "You know me I'm just too stubborn to die quietly."

Dr. Winchester shook his head at the absurdity of the situation. Rally continued, "I've been blown up, shot at, stabbed and violated in ways I don't even want to describe." Her thoughts took on harsh tone. She was tired, hungry and worried. Her thoughts became verbalized as she considered those closest to her, "Yet I'm still here trying to save your sorry ass."

She considered getting up and walking out right then and there. She needed to go help Celes. As she stood up her inherited instincts practically purred into her ear _, "They could be useful."_

Her ego snapped back _, "I don't need his help."_

Looking Maes directly in the eyes she ordered in a tone that said she was only going to say or do this once, "Get them ready to go. I have a shuttle waiting on the roof."

As Rally huffed Maes looked at the doctor and the dimly lit corridor, "They could be any where who knows when they are going to po..."

"There are six bugs on the floor below us, another fifty or so hiding below that floor. A god damn swarm is prowling around the perimeter waiting for something! If you don't leave now there isn't going to be another opportunity." Rally glared at the security officer daring him to do something to justify her shooting him.

His shot gun eased down as he recoiled, "And just where did you pull that little tidbit out of?"

"I don't know!" The hybrid practically growled back, "Something happened in that hive and I just know!"

Dr. Winchester moved close to the girl looking at her in the dim light he turned on a small flash light and looked at her eyes. Observing the pinks of her eyes and finding them unnaturally black he demanded, "Let me see your hands."

She took her hands off the grip of her rifle and pulled off her right glove. The doctor looked closely at the cuticles of the other wise perfectly formed fingers. Rally's now blackened acidic blood gave the thin sensitive skin a tint that even her Sil DNA could not conceal, "I see." The doctor poked and prodded for a moment looking in her mouth and ears. The almost human configuration of the earlobe was good enough to pass a cursory inspection but under the inspection of a trained eye the shape of the Scapha and Antihelical Fold were not quite right. He cut his observations short and took a step back, "The treatment you have undergone must have adapted some of the xenomorph DNA you were exposed to into your genetic code."

Rally inhaled reflexively as the doctor eased away. She could almost smell Nanami on the man. It was a smell but it wasn't a smell at the same time. Some part of her hind brain processed the scent as a marker. It was a message of some kind. It was a sweet smell that seemed communicate safety.

Maes' eyes narrowed as he looked at the doctor and the gun runner, "Just when was she exposed to xenomorph DNA."

"In the hive you simpleton!" The doctor began to belittle the security officer. Constructing a plausible series of events he continued, "It was quite obvious after Ms. Vincent was shot down the bugs implanted her. When she escaped she used her anti-parasite injector on herself she managed to kill the larva before it reached a critical stage unlike Ms. Hopkins. Dr. Jinnai's then used her experimental treatment to help her body cope with the acidic remains of the larva when the two crossed paths."

The doctor knew he was stretching the truth and filling in gaps with lies but he felt he owed Nanami a debt of gratitude. It wasn't very often people stopped to help people in need. He also felt that Ms. Vincent was probably the best and only chance of getting his patients to the safety of the port at this point. Hughes made a face like he just swallowed a bitter lemon. He would have to speak with this doctor sooner rather than later, "How should we get there."

Rally looked down the hall then at the two doctors, "Five at a time three trips. Loa takes point, I'll bring up the rear. You and two other able bodies go with the first batch so we can secure the roof."

Dr. Winchester nodded and moved to the heavy vault door designed to contain a coolant leak. He motioned to a nurse, "We're going five at a time. They secured the stair well."

As he ushered out the first five survivors Rally gave him a tiny nod.

The horrid hive mind watched as the not-us returned to the hunting grounds. The not-us queen was trying to retake its territory. However, they knew there was only one of the not-us now and even a not-us queen would succumb to numbers.

The bugs spread out across the fourth and fifth levels of the hospital as Rally ushered the last of non-Popsicle survivors to the transport. She could feel the bugs moving and some they knew that she knew. The stairwell, the elevator shaft, the ventilation core and the side of the building right in the blind spot behind the heat exchangers. All of intent on ending her evacuation. She looks down at her rifle and sees a sixteen in crisp block lettering. Her hands check her legs, two magazines for the rifle, two more clips for the CZ as her hips shake a bit she is reminded of that pink and green grenade on her hip. Her grin widens as she feels a block of plastique in her hip pouch

A finger presses the transmit button on her radio as she hustles the last five down the hall, "Maes get your boys ready. Bugs are making a move."

"Where?" The calm but icy voice asks crisply.

Slamming a black bundle with a small red diode onto the elevator door. As the civies start humping the stair case one last time she taps Loa on the shoulder, "Time to go."

Hustling up the stairs Rally answers Hughes, "Behind the heat exchangers, use those grenades!"

On the roof the only security officer looked at the black and grey pineapple grenades that had come from May's bench. A desperate prayer to anything that may or may not have been listening went through his mind as he rolled the pair of explosives under the heat exchangers at the far end of the roof.

The sound of gun fire erupted from the stair well as the grenades roll off his finger tips. A cacophony of fire and light filled the door way as Rally and Loa covered their escape. A wave of heat washed across the wet and rainy roof top as the grenades went off. The explosion launched the large air conditioning unit off the edge of the roof.

"Fire in the hole!" Rally screamed as she practically hauled Dr. Winchester behind her Piranha. As the quarter pound of high explosive tore through the elevator shaft and the roof top stairwell liquifying every bug within the stair well and elevator shaft.

A panicked male voice calls out to the hybrid gun smith as she revels in the conflagration. Her head turned to the call of her name and she let out a curse. She didn't know how the human host xenomorphs did it but some how she had been out flanked. The blood dripping from the good doctors mouth emphasized that now was the time for overwhelming force and not keeping secretes. Two quadruped bugs are eager to meet her over whelming force head on. They lunge at her from the corners of her vision. A three round burst into left bug removed the abomination from the land of the living but physics carried out it's last will and testament. Several hundred kilos of mass retained their forward momentum towards the gun smith. Rally shifted her weight and lunged in the only direction that she could. The remaining drone managed to close closer than she realized. As she discharges her weapon at point blank range into the bug she can feel the acidic spray from its wounds.

Maes' eyes swept across the roof top as Loa withdrew to the shuttle. He had lost sight of Doc and Rally but the advancing quadrupeds were not going to let him mount a rescue assault. A feminine scream from his flank told him time was up. He could do little more than fire a few round in the general direction of the girl who strayed a bit to far from the shuttle. Another scream from the direction of Rally's racer causes his head to whip around. The massive synthetic's arm pulled him behind a quickly closing shuttle door. Without any preamble military grade thruster lifted the armored transport off of the over run roof top.

Rally Vincent roared in pain as the massive bug landed on top of her. She felt her leg snap as several hundred kilos of force were applied to a joint never meant to bend in such a manner. As gravity pulled on the thick caustic xenomorph blood she could smell her jacket being dissolved a second before the horrid substance began to eat into her own flesh. Reflex too over before logic told her she couldn't because survival demanded she did. Skin cells shifted and morphed into something far more resilient. Muscle and tendons grew and changed as a lithe arm pushed several hundred kilos of dead xenomorph off of her chest.

Tears seeped from her eyes and mingled with the rain. Cold water splattered across her naked stomach slowly washing away the acid. Part of her wanted to be dead as she felt the pain of her body being destroyed and put back together. Calcium bones were traded for a carbon fiber structure as her hybrid body restructured her broken knee. As she starred into the murky clouds her leg slowly moved and stretched. She watched the shuttle sprint to safety as its engines flung several bugs off the roof. Her tail had long since ripped out of her pants the alien appendage resting in between her legs. With a tired grunt her arms and tail force her onto her stomach. The pain slowly ebbs away as she finds the knee is healed. As she stood up in her true hybrid form she picked up her rifle once more.

Dusting herself off both mentally and physically she could smell the scent of human blood in the air. Sticking her head over the edge of the roof Rally catches a glimpse of her quarry. A bipedal bug with a human in its grasp and a quadruped not too far away with another victim fleeing from the roof top. The climb down the building with cargo had taken time. Time Rally desperately needed to recover. Ejecting the spent magazine from her rifle Rally slides thirty fresh rounds into place.

Her eyes narrowed on her prey. If she took them out too high the hostages would fall to their death. Wait to long and the bugs would probably slink away into some hole. A smirk crossed her face as she twenty-two meters didn't seem that far anymore. Especially when there was a nice big bug to cushion her fall. Vaulting over the edge guard Rally put her feet below her body as she hurled her self at a tiny fleeing target. Before she even had time to regret the decision she felt her tail slicing into the spinal column of drone and her new knee was receiving a trial by fire. Less than a second later she was rolling out of puddle of bug goo with her rifle at the ready.

She aimed low. Payback was going to be served up four fold with piping hot tungsten cores. High velocity penetrating round cut through xenomorph knee caps. Four well placed rounds cripple the fleeing bugs. Slinging her rifle over her shoulder she breaks into a sprint for the doctor. The bug hisses and growls as the not-us queen extracts it's prey from its very claws. Rally lets out a feral his of her own as a brutal curb stomp silences the objections. Her inhuman fury propels her forward towards the girl. The quadruped lashes out at the hybrid. A spiked tail lunges at the hybrid only to be caught in a clawed hand. Rally grips the boney appendage and yanks on it with her considerable strength pulling it taught. As she curls around it her own bladed tail severs that of her attacker. Like a scorpion the hybrid tail recoils from the strike then lashes out again. The precision strike severs brain from body.

As the rush of combat died way Rally looked at her two charges. The lobby of the hospital was eerily quiet. She cast her senses about searching for any bugs but couldn't sense any. The unconscious doctor's bloodied face speaks volumes to her hybrid senses as she looks, listens and feels. A punctured lung, several bruised ribs and a nasty cut on his leg leave the man reeking of death. The girl isn't much better off either. A dislocated shoulder, an eye swollen shut, complimented by a nasty gash on the left side of her face, erratic breathing and tremors along her left side indicate injuries beyond that of a field medic.

Yet underneath it all there is that terribly sweet scent. It reminds her of her mother and piano polish, her father and gun oil. For all its subtle under tones it demands action. Rally looks at the two in a confused daze for a moment and she can only think one thing, "Nanami would very much like for these people to survive."

Before she can even ask if she is doing the right thing her tail has already shifted and changed. The potent neurotoxin she used to ensure the drones quick deaths is removed from the blade. The building blocks for something far more potent seep into the core of her victims through two stomach wounds that close as her tail leaves their abdomens. She backs away subtly stunned by the thought of what she has just done.

It seems like an eternity passes as the girl's eye smooths out. Her erratic breath and trembling take on a much more sedate pace while her arm slides back into place with little more than a pop. The doctor's breath goes from a thick wet sound to little more than a wheeze. He twitches a bit as his breath become smooth and silent. She stands up and looks around. The two are sleeping now. Their skin darkens as wounds minor and fatal knit shut. Part of her is deeply satisfied with her actions while her conscious mind panics and she practically shouts over the party line, "Um, people!"

"Oh nice; that's a pretty good price for all-leather upholstery." Nanami's golden eyes picked out the fine print on the price tags as the two Hybrids prowled through the abandoned business in pursuit of Celes. Seemed this place sold furniture; the place looked particularly eerie in the dying light of the running-down emergency lamps.

Ranma chuckled at the inane observation. "Well, they export beef and skins, so I imagine leather's pretty cheap around here."

"Acute thinking, jock." Nanami took a sniff of the air. "She came through here."

Ranma took a sniff too. "I got it too. "To his Hybrid nose the air was spicy with the rich smell of polished leather, but there was also something else: a tingling nerve-dancing airborne trail of pheromones... _female_ scent that started kicking a part of his male hind brain.

Nanami caught the sudden spike of lust from the male next to her. "HEY! Mind on business and one girl at a time, stud!"

"Sorry." Ranma reigned in the rampant libido, helped by the cold shower sensation that it wasn't ONLY young female Hybrid that he could smell. There was another unfortunately all-too-familiar scent, like a cold mustiness, here too. One he'd learned to associate with hard carapaces and reaching claws. "Careful; she's not alone. WE'RE not alone."

"You keep watch then, and I'll try to sound her out."

Nanami reached out with her mind. She could feel the inky knots of darkness scampering here and there, some close, many more off in the near distance, a dark cloud looming over her mindscape but she ignored. In the midst of it, though, she could feel the strong presence of Ranma beside her, not quite in front of her, but right beside her, providing his silent support. Stepping 'ahead' in her mind's eye, she searched the murk, looking, looking, looking...and found what she was looking for, a convoluted patch of frantic activity, all bundled up in one compressed point.

 _#"Celes?"#_

 _# WHAT?! WHO?! STAY AWAY!? Who?! Danger?! No/Yes! Male? Yes, male! But Bad Female there too! Bad Female was the cause of all this! All trouble started with the Bad Female! STAY AWAY FROM BAD FEMALE! STAY AWAY! HURT BAD FEMALE!#_

The pure hissing rage in the mental voice was enough to toss Nanami's mind-scry back to herself, leaving her blinking. It had reminded her of the time she'd tried to pet a cat that would have nothing to do with her. Mentally she found herself counting her fingers to see if they were all there. Celes was NOT a happy Hybrid.

"Oh shit, she's still mad at me. And she's feral." Nanami sighed resignedly. "Some people just never give up a grudge."

Ranma grinned, fanged white teeth showing up brightly against his gunmetal skin. "Yeah, I knew people like that."

"She's in back. Holed up in the warehouse. The Bugs are coming this way. Damn, it's NEVER easy." Nanami gestured towards the back of the store, following a trail of disturbed upholstery and overturned showroom displays.

"Got a plan for when we find her?"

" Throw myself on her mercy, and hope that she snaps out of it, while praying that my regeneration and your presence keep her from hurting me TOO badly? That fails, we try using your charms on her."

"You know that plan sucks?"

"Tell me about it. But I have NO idea what would sedate one of us and shooting her's out of the question. We don't have a heck of lot of options here. As much as I hate to consider it, throwing you at her may be the only workable option we have time for."

Both Hybrids sensed the attack even before it came, just as they stepped into the back rooms.

 _%"HHHHssssttttttt!"%_

 _%"THhhaaaaaaaaaa!"%_

In perfect synchronization Nanami's left hook caved in the side of the head of the Bug leaping at her from the side of the door on her left, while Ranma's right hook spun the head of the Bug dropping out of the suspended ceiling on their right on its neck like a propeller, effectively decapitating it. One Bug collapsed courtesy of its lobotomy, the other drummed mindlessly on the floor as its body tried to deal with a cut spinal cord.

Nanami shook the dripping Bug ichor and what passed for brains from her hand on the floor, careful not to get any more of it on her and ignoring the hissing acid goo as it ate into the floor. "How do you manage to always get the CLEAN ones?!"

 _%"HHHHssssttttttt!"%_

Ranma picked up a castered office chair, popped the carriage portion of it from the seat, and lobbed the former at the quadruped monster that was charging them from down the corridor. The 'x'-shaped metal leg assembly smashed into the Bug, cutting it lengthwise into four sections and spraying acidic grue all over the hallway.

"I stand corrected."

"Hey, I cleared the way, didn't I?"

" You did indeed. Come on, let's go get her."

Three more drones dropped down at the end of the corridor, hissing at them and blocking their way again.

"Okay, this is getting a little much, don't you think?" Nanami groaned as she brought her gun up at the unwelcome newcomers.

Celes was running on automatic, running through showroom and warehouse almost mindlessly, a panicked child or a fleeing animal in her thoughts. Unmindful of collateral damage, she knocked over furniture, crashed through doors, though at times she did grab and toss stuff behind her, in some halfhearted effort to block the way of anybody following her.

She could sense the female, the one responsible for all this, and the other, the male, coming up behind her, intent on finding her.

The male was a novelty enough, something new in her addled mind. Under normal circumstances she might seek him out, check him out, go to him and- and-, visions of lust began to surface.

Quashed immediately, the visions were. The male was was with HER, the bad one. As long as he was with HER, she-who-was-Celes wouldn't go near them. She wasn't ready to deal with that. She couldn't deal with any of this! She just wanted, needed, to get away, seek the familiar, the safe, where she didn't have to deal with any of this!

Unfortunately, in her hatred of one thing, she overlooked her fear of another. She had blindly run through the ranks of a dozen drones, made her way through the maze of darkened warehouse unseeing and unmindful of the danger around her.

And that's when she practically ran into the grasp of true evil.

Celes caught a glimpse of sharp angular features looming out of the darkness, reaching out at her, A massive clawed appendage caught her in the side as she reeled back instinctively, but not far enough. Celes suddenly found herself surrounded by a chitinous cage of alien muscle.

To give her credit, Celes reacted with streetfighter instincts and training drilled in her by her no-nonsense adoptive mother figure.

She screamed and leapt, trying to bring hands and feet into action in a move that would have torn the face off any would-be rapist. Izumi would have been proud of her little firebrand.

Unfortunately, she wasn't facing a human opponent.

A spiked tail came out of the darkness like a black lightning bolt, smacking her down to the floor, not quite collapsing her lungs but certainly driving the air out of her. Hybrid spine and bones creaked, and Celes' involuntary cry of pain was cut short.

The same clawed hands came down, closed around her limbs with crushing strength, picked her up, and threw her into the wall, once, twice, three times, every time she tried to get her strength under her. Her attempt to spear the thing with her own tail was batted aside. An attempt to scamper up the wall and out of its grip likewise failed when its massive armored head smashed into her, dazing her.

Then, to her horror, it pushed her up against the wall, pinning her in place.

Mandibles closed around her face, clamping around her head, sharp dagger-points pressing through skin and grinding against her jaw and cheekbones.

Then something began to force its way between her lips.

Celes' mind went white with panic.

 _ **#"HELP ME! ANYBODY! HELP ME!"#**_

"Oh HELL..."

Nanami and Ranma had both sensed the particularly vile-feeling concentration of darkness as it had closed in on Celes, and had redoubled their efforts to get to the younger Hybrid. They'd closed the distance at insane speed, but still they were afraid they might be too late, especially when Celes' thoughts had gone white hot with panic...just as they'd gone through the final barrier. However, sensing from a distance and seeing directly were two different things.

The monstrosity that they saw was as thoroughly evil looking as the presence that wafted off it, like a cloud of poison gas, or the reek of death. Scales, spikes, tentacular dreadlocks, and more, all contributed to a nightmare out of some depressed and arguably psychotic artist's canvas-delerium.

Seeing Celes in the thing's grasp, however, had forced them out of their momentary stupor and into action.

Ranma had moved far faster than Nanami had ever seen him move thus far. So fast that even with her enhanced perceptions he'd almost been invisible to her as he streaked across the room, closing the distance between him and the monstrosity molesting the other young Hybrid.

One moment he had been beside Nanami, the next there was a clamor of impacting flesh and bone, a high pitched female scream and another throatier, inhuman, screech like steam escaping from a burst boiler. Two dark masses flew violently apart.

One flew into the opposite wall, to crash against the shelves there in a tangle of spikes, spines, claws, shelving, and inventory.

The other dark mass flew back towards Nanami, rolling in the air to touch down next to her, resolving itself into Ranma clutching Celes in his arms. The younger girl was shaking her head wildly, hawking and spitting to clear her mouth.

Now that they were apart again, their shock and revulsion took hold again.

Almost absently, Ranma passed Celes over to Nanami as they both stared at the hideous amalgamation of the all-too-familiar Bug phenotype and the Yautja. Celes clutched at Nanami like a life preserver, her past animosity apparently gone, blown away, her quickened pulse almost audibly thundering in their enhanced hearing.

Ranma stared at the abomination now pulling itself out of the wall down the room. "Well, this is new..."

Nanami stared at the pale monster, trying to fit it into what she knew about her hated enemy. "I've heard rumors of things like that, but I don't know of anybody who's ever seen one of those in person and LIVED."

"We'll make an exception, then." Ranma stated flatly as he cracked his knuckles.

The scaly dreadlocked monster now faced them, its cutlery nightmare array of mandibles and fangs gnashing in obvious hatred at those who'd denied it its prize.

"Nami, get Celes here to Rally! I'll be along!"

"What do you think you're doing?!"

"Being a dumb jock, of course, now GO!"

Nanami looked like she wanted to argue, to assert a decade of college-level academic education and experience over the neanderthal with the barely high school level passing grades. It was only momentary, though; experience had taught her to defer to the experts when the situation demanded. She went.

As soon as Ranma sensed Nanami and Celes leaving, he was already in motion himself, charging to meet the abomination's own charge.

Winry was bored... She'd be in heaven studying the ship, but for the police crowding around the communications room, and Izumi pestering her .

Somehow she'd managed to ditch the latter's pointed questions and smothering concern and momentarily found some respite dodging down into the ship's hold, hoping to do some poking around, or maybe go with the excuse of attending to 'repairs', like Miz Kodachi and Miz Nanami had discussed as the cover for her presence earlier.

That's when she noticed the light glowing on her cart.

Winry fished out the remote control device from its hang-strap on the back of the cart seat and looked at it.

 _Eh? Somebody's tampered with the Rustbucket?_

Winry sat down and studied the control board. She hadn't gotten any impression from any of the others through what she increasingly thought of as 'the Party Line' that they were doing anything other than fighting, fleeing, or swearing...some of the impressions were downright frightening, in fact, and since the few people who would be able to drive her hovercar were either part of the Party Line or were upstairs, that narrowed the possibilities down of what the little light meant.

That meant somebody had stolen her car.

"Damn..." Winry stared at the console, trying to make sense of the readouts. Normally her little theft-prevention system could provide her clear info through the Ceti Alpha planetary comm/GPS satellite net, but between the storms and apparent takedown of the comm system, she was having trouble getting a clear read on where her car was and where it it was going. "If only I could punch through all this static..."

"Does Miz Winry desire a clearer connection?"

Winry's head shot up at the voice of the ship's AI. She'd had a little interaction with the positively FASCINATING system before Mister Saotome, Izumi and the cops had shown up.

"KORI? That's your designation, right?"

"That is my designation, yes. Do you require a signal boost to your signaling mechanism? This ship is fully wired for wireless communications throughout its structure, with the exception of certain shielded areas. If you wish, I can boost the signal of your device through our main communications array and shuttle relays. "

"Oh CAN you? That would be so great!"

"Implementing."

Winry looked back at the readouts on her handheld, watching as the electronic snow cleared up, and a schematic map of the city sprang into sharp relief, a blinking dot centered in it marking progress.

"Oh, MUCH better. Now, let's see if we can't find out who you are and where you think you're going with my car..."

The sounds of carnage had broken out as soon as Nanami had cleared the building. The tear of sheet metal, the snapping of girders, the breaking of glass, and the cracking of sheet rock.

She just had to stop, to turn and look.

Celes was starting to weakly protest being carried, and Nanami had set her down, the younger girl getting shakily to her feet next to Nanami as they bore distant witness to what was happening at the furniture warehouse. Nanami could sense some clarity to the younger girl's thoughts, though it ws more of an shocked _ohshitohshitohshitohshitohshit_ than the previous feral snarling spitting hate, but as long as she wasn't trying claw Nanami's afce off, the older girl wasn't immediately concerned. She had other things to gawk at.

Nanami watched wide-eyed as the building behind them seemed to RIPPLE, the roof and walls bulging in a surge that ran from one end of the building, knocking loose dust, gutters, and tile, then surged back to the other end. Several objects that might have been the mangled remains of sofas, office chairs, desks, or tables, came smashing through walls, embedding themselves in them, or passing right through. Windows blew out. What might have been the emergency fire extinguishing system began to gush flame-retardant vapor as its pipes were broken.

"Oh, quit playing with the damn thing already..." Nanami muttered, mostly to convince herself that it was true. The impressions she was getting from Ranma were anything but playful, though. The thing was putting up more of a fight than he bargained for and he was doing the equivalent of starting to sweat bullets in there.

Nanami began looking around for anything for something, anything, that she could use to help out her ...friend? Professional colleague? Mate?...if the opportunity presented itself. Celes had left her firearms in the hospital, Nanami had emptied her gun on the way in. There had to be something else they could use laying around. A dropped gun, a fully charged loadlifter, Excalibur, if it was available.

"Oh shit..."

Nanami wasn't sure if it was Celes or herself who said that; but it summed up a sudden realization for both of them.

Around her and Celes Nanami both sensed and saw the swarm. Reformed, strengthened, maybe even more than had been at the hospital. Quadrupeds, and a disturbing number that ran upright, emerging from the shadows, from behind corners, from atop walls and buildings, closing off routes of escape.

Like they were under intelligent direction.

"Oh, I REALLY hate Bugs..."

 _Damn this thing's fucking strong!_

Ranma smacked into the wall again as he and the abomination traded blows, smashing away at each other with little grace and no style at all in the confines of the building. The creature had proven unusually fast and resilient, and godawfully strong, going up against him blow-for-blow, and giving as good as it got.

Ranma knew he should be able to take this thing down fast enough, but it just wasn't happening. Unfortunately, even with his new abilities, the earlier battle with the swarm had taken a lot out of him. He hadn't been expecting to take on the Bug equivalent of a Dojo Destroyer for a follow-up, much to his chagrin.

 _Stupid, stupid, stupid!_ Ranma berated himself as he blocked an attempt at a tail impalement by the abomination. _There's ALWAYS a fucking Boss level!_

He returned with a blocking punch, sizzling with blue electrical energy. Sensing the attack and having learned from experience, the bugly arched back out of reach of the deadly energy, then leaned back in to jab with a befanged tongue.

Ranma ducked under the bite, tried to uppercut the thing's jaw and get it to bite its own tongue off. Instead he had to dodge a potentially disemboweling kick the monster had coming. Instead, it took out a support beam, making the roof above groan in protest. A water pipe burst, sending spray flying and fogging in the waning emergency lighting.

Nanami's sending of dismay told him that he didn't have the time to play with this thing. As much as he hated leaving a Big Bad and Ugly to crop up again to bother him later, he had other responsibilities to attend to.

As the thing sidestepped a thrown sofa, Ranma dropped down to the floor and faced the beast as it came shambling at him, all claws and jaws.

"SAOTOME SECRET FAMILY TECHNIQUE!"

The monster actually paused, sensing that its opponent was up to something, and bracing for it.

"RUN AWAY!"

Ranma whirled, scampered up a bank of industrial shelving, and bailed across the ceiling, leaping from support to support girder. With an angry hiss the abomination tried to follow, but the shelving structure, already weakened from several hit, groaned and gave way, domino'ing down on top of the creature.

Then the roof finally gave way.

It was a pair of Unbloodeds, moving in advance of the Elder, who saw the approaching _ooman_ vehicle first, coming at them out of the fog in the deserted streets, its hoverjets screaming like a charging animal. They tensed, bringing their weapons to bear, as the craft came closer and closer to their position.

The newly-Blooded saw the familiar outline of Yautja distortions looming on rooftops ahead. At last, he'd made it! Time to inform the rest of the hunting party of the abomination that needed destroying!

He was about to lean up out of the craft and yell his identity at the other Hunters when the _ooman_ craft seemed to acquire a will of its own. Suddenly the hovercraft veered sharply to the left, jamming the Yautja into the sides of the cockpit.

Frantically, fearing some malfunction, the Yautja clutched at the controls, trying to wrestle the vehicle back on course. Instead, the vehicle stabilized of its own accord, straightened out, and accelerated...in the wrong direction.

He yanked at the controls; to no avail. They weren't responding. He pulled again, and still no response! He began to pull himself up out of the cockpit, wincing at what seemed the inevitable prospect of another high speed bailout onto the pavement-

And that was when some trigger-happy Unblooded or two behind him, seeing what they thought was an escaping _ooman_ target, started shooting at him.

Seeing a plasma bolt slam into the roadbed next to the careening hovercar, the young Yautja looked over his shoulder in disbelief...just in time to see another plasma bolt coming right at him! Ducking down frantically, he felt the hot plasma crease his helmet, scorch the top of the windshield frame, then barrel into the fog ahead like a mad bolide.

The Yautja screamed a stream of disbelieving curses deriding _ooman_ engineering, the suspect parentage of certain unculled Unbloodeds, and the injustice of life in general as he watched another stream of glowing bolts coming at him...just before the hovercar whipped out of the line of fire and back into the darkness of the _ooman_ community.

Aboard the -Beagle-, Winry toggled the control switches on her handheld, brow creased in concentration as she navigated the hovercar through the street map, watching her jury-rigged collision avoidance sensors to avoid hitting any parked cars or other obstacles, as she brought her vehicle home to the spaceport. She wished she'd installed a camera so she could tell who was in the car, but she hadn't gotten around yet to what should have been a logical first step, at least for somebody who wasn't a bubbly young hobby-engineer.

Oh well, they'd know soon enough. And it wasn't as if Bugs hot-wired cars, right?

" _Gau'ralt! (Stop! Stop wasting your ammunition!)"_ The Elder commanded, as the youngsters around him continued to shoot at the retreating _ooman_ vehicle. Poor fire discipline it was, to shoot at a target that was clearly already out of range! The Elder shook his head with annoyance; did they not figure that whoever that was, there were few places they could go, hide, or seek shelter at in this place of death? The Hunters would catch up again with whoever was in that vehicle and take their head if they were truly worthy prey!

Though he had caught only a brief glimpse of the fleeing vehicle, the Elder did wonder for a moment. Had he only imagined it, but had he heard over the scream of plasma cannon and the howl of hoverjets the scream of vinegary Yautja profanity?

No, he must have only imagined it, or else it was one of the Unbloodeds yelling. He motioned his lieutenants to follow him as he continued his own Hunt for superior prey and answers.

A blond haired girl listens to the angry howl of a flatlining heart monitor as she stares at the ceiling of the hangar. A tired woman crosses the curtain into her area and looks at her in surprise, "You're awake. Oh my, your awake let me get the doctor!"

Her head sunk back into the pillow as the nurse put the monitor into silent mode and slipped the pulse monitor back onto her finger. She breathed a silent sigh of relief as no digital screens obscured her vision and the dull ache of pain from her fingers and toes informed her of their presence. The thought of an artificial body always terrified her on some level. She could feel the stitches underneath the thick gauze bandages and frowned, her guild license would probably be revoked if she didn't have the scars taken care of at her next checkup. She pushed her self up into a sitting position and immediately regretted the action. As the thin veil surrounding her bed was opened by an exhausted looking doctor. He quickly chastised, "Your rib cage had to be cracked open please remain lying down."

She just nodded as he guided her down onto her back, "Water."

The nurse with the doctor quickly complied darting out of the curtain and quickly returning with a straw covered cup. May gagged a bit as she tasted the enriched water the sports drink like substance coated her mouth but left a terrible metallic sensation on her tongue, "How bad is it out there?"

The doctor shook his head, "Wet and dark. Grip my fingers please."

May grabbed the calloused hand and squeezed gently. She let her eyes wander across the ceiling as the examination continued, "Rally?"

"Hmm?" The doctor responded as he penciled in the results of the tests.

The small woman clarified as she struggled to look at his face, "Rally Vincent my pilot, she was with me."

Evading the question he replied blandly, "They are still shuttling in patients I'm not sure."

May curled the blanket into her fist as she tried to ignore the dull ache through out her entire body and the searing pain down the center of her chest. The doctor offered her one parting comfort, "I'll see about some pain killers now that you are awake."

She quietly mumbled to her self, "What I wouldn't do for guild regeneration tank."

On the other side of town the pilot was experiencing just how wet and dark this afternoon was. Rally roughly dumped her two survivors into the back of a bullet hole ridden ambulance. Doing her best to secure the two on the gurney she tied the two down like a package. Security belts meant to hold one patient in place were hastily stretched out and their occupants were crammed into a very intimate position. She could feel the inky flow of alien minds just beyond her perception and knew that she was on borrowed time. As she climbed back into the driver's seat she looked at the slowly opening garage door.

A spike of panic and pain sent a surge of adrenaline through her exhausted body. Rally's eyes darted from left to right as she quickly realized the feeling was not her own. She forced herself to focus as her mental walls slowly crumbled under the exhaustion. As the steel over head door curled out of the way she eased the ambulance forward. Unfortunately she ended up stopping less than ten yards away. She looked at the bit of metal on the ground and decided that anger would do to focus her mind for now. Not that she was angry, mostly just disappointed. Collecting the anti-material rifle and a small SMG from the gutter she resolved that her and Celes would be having a long chat in the near future.

Rally cursed under her breath as the two weapons joined her rifle on the passenger seat. No, she really didn't want to go that way. The swarming darkness seemed thickest in that direction. As her tired mind cast out to find her charge she realized of course that was where she was. As the red emergency vehicle idled in the center of the street Rally mocked her unconscious cargo, "Well my friends I have this, lets call it thought."

She looked at her small cache of weapons and talked to them, "The kitten got into some trouble. I think she's in more trouble than the strangers are up to."

Looking at the SMG on the driver seat she nodded, "Thought you'd say that. But the thing is I also got some wallflowers to take care of."

Her eyes moved back and forth between the SMG and her rifle. The conversation in her mind continued, "Well, little lady, your in between what they call in the business, a rock and a hard place."

Rally's head turned to her vest holster, "Excuse me."

"You heard me bitch!" The grenade on her vest took charge, "You're gonna go fuck up some bugs or everybody DIES! D. E. D!"

Rally looked at her rifle and The Duke countered back eloquently, "You got some choices to make and ain't none of them easy. Either way you best saddle up. "

A rabid expression crossed the grenades features as it foamed at the mouth, "No where is safe. No one is safe. Kill them all!"

The gunsmith nodded in agreement, "He's got a point." The rifle shrugged as only a rifle could. The grenade screamed back, "Your dead bitch! Nobody mistakes my perfect curves for a boy and gets away with it." Futilely trying to pull out its own pin the grenade howled in anger.

Run away, the basis of every escape, put as much distance between you and the demonic horde of aliens pursuing you. Ranma thought it would be a simple plan to execute. Yet fuzzy memories of being chased through the woods by a pack of wolves surfaced in his mind. Some how that memory ended painfully as well.

He caught a glimpse of Nanami turning around. Her tail lashing out at a dark separation that had gotten too close for her comfort. Two hundred kilos slammed into the nearest wall reducing it to rubble as the hybrid forced her self to vault away from the impact. The read headed scientist's breath was ragged and the trembling in her arms indicated she couldn't push much harder. Ranma knew he wasn't faring much better him self. His reserves were depleted from so many sources. He really wished that he had time to train and master his body but the beagle just wasn't suitable for such training. He eyed the young blond. She definitely wasn't the hulking amazonian creature they were tracking through the ware house. Her form had shrunk, her spikes become less aggressive. She should be in the best condition but what ever she had done to her self... His thoughts cut off as he hurled a street sign at a lunging bug.

Nanami looked at her traveling companions. Her unsteady movement only punctuated the facts of her voice, "I can't keep this up."

Celes panted in agreement her darkened hybrid features wet with more than just rain. Her head lifted and looked down the street and suddenly a swift death seemed almost merciful.

The wail of sirens and the flashing of lights cut through the rain and chaos of battle. The humming in the back of their minds got louder as the box truck approached. Nanami looked at Ranma and blinked, "Kill the wabbit?"

Looking at the deserted street and feeling the approach of two belligerent powers Celes gave a worried look to both her companions as the Ride of the Valkyries reverberated through her mind. As the three ran to the sirens and lights the sound of gun fire joined the cacophony of sounds in the air.

The ambulance skidded to a stop as the feeling hybrid dove to the curb. Rally Vincent rolled out of the driver door and hurled something towards the thickest portion of the inky abyss that pursued them.

She looked at Ranma and tilted her head to the side, "Huh, I'd thought you'd be taller." Before he could reply she just pointed to the truck, "Get in."

Her eyes turned to Nanami, "Seriously a lot taller."

Looking at Celes she scowled, "You and me are going to have a long chat in a bit." She shoved the SMG into her hands, "But first you drive."

"As for you." Rally stood close to Nanami, "Get in the back."

The exhausted gunsmith sagged into the equally exhausted biologist. The two staggered to the back. As the shut the doors behind themselves an unholy wave of pain assaulted their minds. Celes' foot slammed to the floor as mental pain translated into an excruciating physical torture.

Nanami looked out the back window of the battered emergency vehicle to see an odd yellow light coming out of the store. It crackled and hung in the air like poorly animated lightning. As the mental pressure increased the two forms on the gurney beside them groaned in irritation as well. Clutching her head desperately wishing the assault would stop the telepath shut her eyes.

The neon web of yellow light grew rigid and forcibly aligned into an almost orderly pattern before suddenly contracting. Silence reigned as overwhelmed senses adjusted to the lack of stimuli. The building that Rally had thrown the pink and green grenade at belched out a cloud of dust and derbies from it's windows. Celes turned around to yell at her mentor but instead received a swat on the nose, "Eyes on the road."

Nanami punched the gunsmith in the shoulder, "What the hell was that!"

She shrugged and eased back into the chair, "Mob boss repellent."

"Your Insane!" Nanami screamed at their rescuer, "Bat Shit Insane!"

Rally looked at The Duke and nodded, "The Duke says you talk too much. That you need to relax a bit."

Nanami readied a fiery retort but Rally's head slumped against her shoulder as she passed out.

 **• The escape continues...**

• Plunder gets SERIOUS about reducing headcount...

• Izumi and Kodachi have a little chat.

• Winry reclaims her prize.

• Hughes and his wife are reunited.

• Something Else

 **Read the comments on this episode**

 **Enforced Evolution** **: Not the Blues Brothers [** **Episode 242945** **]**

 **by Tman**

Celes had managed to insert herself into the ambulance's driver seat, while Ranma and Nanami had pulled the unconscious Rally into the back, trying to brace and make her as comfortable as possible as Celes sent the battered medical bus flying through the urban canyons as fast as she was able.

Nanami had had some reservations at first about Celes getting behind the wheel of a heavy vehicle so soon after her feral blackout, but Celes had told her both mentally and verbally, initially with some quaver, but growing determination, that she could do it and no arguments.

Nanami conceded the point. It wasn't as if she was any better with an ambulance.

After their escape from the warehouse, both of the older Hybrids were panting and worn out.

"We gotta quit this sort of shit."

"Agreed...I just wanted a nice peaceful sleepy backwater dirtball to hide out on while I tried to make sense of everything and plan our next move."

Nanami looked at her fellow Hybrid. For once, he wasn't radiating 'sex', and she could well understand. This, in spite of the fact that he had more skin than ever showing; his clothes were barely hanging on, what with tears, rips, and acid burns. Only the combat webbing from the pitiful few pieces of body armor he'd started out with seemed to be still perfectly intact, likely because of the military standards demanding acid resistance. Oddly enough, that old sword and its scabbard also seemed perfectly intact.

She wasn't dressed any better; her clothing now little more than wishful thinking. Come to think of it, Celes wasn't any better off either.

"Damn...if we keep going through clothes like this, we're going to have to seriously think about investing in custom threads."

"Add it to the list." Ranma grunted. The List was getting pretty damned long.

Nanami tiredly leaned back against the wall of the ambulance, careful not to sit on the two people she sensed rather than saw stretched out on the gurney. Then suddenly she stopped, reached down, grabbed the hands of the small dark-haired and dark-skinned girl laying there, checked the nails, then thumbed an eyelid back and checked the eyes. She repeated the examination on the older man laying unconscious there, recognizing the man immediately as Doctor Winchester.

"Why are there two new hybrids back here?"

Celes yelled from the front. "Probably your fault!"

"I had nothing to do with it! You can't blame me for EVERYTHING!"

"Wasn't me!"

Both Nanami and Ranma looked at the unconscious Rally on the floor between them. They could sense the sluggish, decidedly not ready to answer questions, thoughts floating in the young woman's mind.

'Riiighhhttt...not going to get any answers out of her."

Ranma looked at the torn clothing of the older man and the young girl on the stretcher, with the eye of somebody with experience in assessing physical injuries. "Looks like blood caked there. A lot. I don't think she had much choice; leave'em wounded for the Bugs to finish off or heal'em up. Just like 'Dachi did you and the other girl, Winry."

Nanami leaned back against the wall again, too tired to argue." Or Celes did for Rally here...We've been doing a lot of that lately, haven't we?"

"Right reasons, wrong timing." Ranma contributed.

"Oh, I sure hope these folks are understanding sorts...I almost told the doctor here everything about us, but not everything. I hope he doesn't mind the full package up close and personal."

There was silence between them as they contemplated the prospect of having to explain things to two more unexpected arrivals, even as they listened to the quiet mental murmurs of the two two convertees.

However, as the two Hybrids had learned, it rarely stays quiet for long.

" _OH crap!"_ The cursing was accompanied by the ambulance suddenly slowing down.

"I don't like the sounds of that...Celes, what's wrong?! Why aren't we moving?"

"Traffic jam! We got wrecked vehicles blocking the road! We can't go through this way!" To accentuate that point the ambulance began backing up hard.

Ranma looked out the back door windows(absently he noticed the spider-cracking on the reinforced glass). "Ah, better hurry! We got company!"

Nanami groaned as she looked out alongside Ranma.

Even through the fog she could see the dark-shelled horde coming down the road in pursuit. She could feel the angry chittering in her mind, sense the swarm's fear at the us-not-us being overridden by the dark anger and avarice pushing them on.

"Crap, I think they're mad at us."

"This is starting to remind me of Nerima, and not in a good way. CELES, GET US OUT OF HERE!""

"I'M TRYING! Yeesh, Mister, I hardly know you and you're already ordering me around!"

There was an abrupt lurching and violent shifting as the hoverfans reoriented, then the ambulance jumped into forward motion again. Unfortunately, the new path wasn't as open as the last one had been before the roadblock, and Celes perforce had to proceed slower down the road.

The black tide behind them was steadily gaining on them.

The Elder Hunter blinked under his mask.

From where he and his hunt party perched atop an _ooman_ structure there looked to be a veritable WAVE of Hard Meat racing along the community thoroughfares and over the rooftops not far away from them.

Not just a few Hard Meat, but a raging tide drawing in fresh numbers as it passed. The black wave gave no sign, though, that they took any notice of the small band of Hunters nearby, instead seeming more intent on following something else.

For a few brief moments, the Yautja caught a glimpse of a vehicle of some sort winding its way down one of the boulevards, obviously trying to remain ahead of the pursuing pack.

Something seemed to be drawing the ire of the Hard Meat, if so many were following one small group of potential host-prey. That meant something.

The Elder didn't like being distracted from his own pursuit, but a good hunter always was aware of his environment and any changes in it. This could be relevant and it behooved him to investigate. Besides, he idly noted, the vehicle was coming from the opposite direction that the _ooman_ aerospace craft had been flying to. Whatever was in that vehicle, it might have clues as to the sword-wielding prey.

Careful not to draw the attention of the Hard Meat, the Elder signaled his entourage to follow, to parallel the speeding vehicle and its pursuit.

 ***WHAM!***

 _sccckkklasssshhhhhhhhhh!*_

 _whiiiirrrruckruckruckrucrucrucrucrucrucrucbruuuuummmummumm_

"Oh shit!"

"Why are we slowing down again?!"

"Bugs ahead of us! Hit one and I think its acid screwed one of the hover fans!" Celes yelled, looking at the red telltales on her dashboard. "I'm trying to compensate, but we're losing power!"

"Hell..."

They could all sense the trailing horde surging after the now slowed ambulance.

Ranma turned to the door. "Gonna need room to maneuver."

"You're going out?"

Don't see we have a choice." Indeed, enhanced vision not withstanding, they could see the glint of white fangs gaping behind them, closer every second.

'Crap, I hate not having choices. I don't suppose anybody left a machine gun in here we could use...?"

"Here! Take this!"

A handgun came flipping through the air from the front cab. Nanami snatched it from mid air.

"Thanks!"

"Just make sure I get it back!"

*CRASH* The first Bug leaped onto the back doors and began tearing at them.

Ranma obliged by suddenly opening the door, then tail-spearing the xenomorph as it hung in midair. The eviscerated carcass was then thrown into its followers.

Ranma then jumped out, snapping himself up onto the roof of the speeding vehicle. Claws tore through the remains of boots, anchoring the hybrid to the ambulance's top.

The next Bug that leaped at the open door got shot in the face by Nanami. The second one smacked into the closing door, then got speared in the mouth with an improvised sticker made of gurney handrail.

Its mangled tongue flooding its throat with acidic ichor, the monster toppled back and off, not dead, but definitely inconvenienced.

Just as quickly as it fell back, though, another lunged in to take its place.

Nanami backpedaled in what room was available as several hard-shelled claw-arms came smashing through the glass partition, reaching for her face.

A gunmetal complexioned hand caught one and gave it an abrupt hard twist with as much torque as a machine lathe. Something outside screamed as joints popped loose and musculature ripped.

Sluggish thoughts sluicing away to reveal something more focused and hungry, Rally had rejoined the fight.

Meanwhile, Ranma was finding himself wishing for a really big mallet as he hopped his attention from one side of the still racing ambulance to another. Punch this, kick that, tail lash another as it poked its head over the edge of the roof. Grip the edge of the roof, swing down and double-kick the Bug trying to leap aboard, swing back up to the roof, meet the jump of the Bug that had been AHEAD of the escape vehicle, and send it on its way past into the roadbed. After that, turn to meet the charge of two more Bugs that had come running from alleyways and jumped aboard the staggering ambulance.

Tail slashed through the thin neck of one of the Bugs, decapitating it.

Clawed hands grabbed another banana-shaped head, lifting and twisting. With a thin screech, silicate bones cracked, and ichor spewed as the Bug described a backwards arc into the street, its head all but completely twisted off, to fall into the street, kicking and flailing mindlessly as its body tried to process the message that it was dead.

Another Bug came up the side of the ambulance to face its opponent head-on, its jaws opening to unleash its fanged tongue.

Armored hands moving at nearly supersonic speed grabbed the saliva-slick tongue as it shot forward, pinched with hydraulic-like strength, and PULLED.

The Bug's brain as such registered what passed for shock and surprise as it found its entire lower jaw ripped off and away. Its forward momentum carried it up and over the side of the bus, as the mutilated Bug unintentionally followed its removed body parts into the darkness.

Ranma was in his element, the here-and-now of the melee

But he couldn't meet every attack; he could sense some making for the front of the ambulance, or trying to force their way inside the back. A steady stream of verbal and mental invective told of Nanami's and Rally's efforts to thwart the Bugs' attempts.

And with so many Bugs, there were bound to be lucky ones. As in the one that managed to blitz through Ranma's defenses and knock him down, pushing him head over backwards over the edge of the ambulance roof. His feet couldn't twist far enough to find enough purchase on the slick metal, so his tail was the only thing keeping him from going over. Ranma's arms windmilled

Sensing his vulnerability, the Bug straddled him, coming down his legs, claws reaching to eviscerate him. The creature had the reach on him from its position, and Ranma doubted his regeneration abilities would help him much from the damage the monster could inflict on him.

As much as he hated to waste a good old weapon, Ranma pulled out the katana from its scabbard behind his shoulders and sliced at the Bug's torso.

The blade bit cleanly, lopping the alien off at the midsection, sending it smacking face down off the vehicle, its claws scrabbling briefly in a futile effort to hold on as the still animated upper torso fell by him, then into the speeding roadway.

*CRASSH*

*SCREEEEEEEEEE!*

Translucent white teeth gnawed at the edges of the hole in the windshield, a be-slimed fanged tongue groping for her face.

Celes snapped up the familiar SMG from the seat next to her and popped a round in the Bug's forehead.

*KERCHOW!*

*SCLASSSS*

Celes winced at the crackling as the windshield wipers dissolved under the attack of spilled acidic blood.

"Oh well, not like they were doing much good anyway."

Then another dark form came through the passenger side window and made a grab at her.

"YARRGGHHH!" ***KERCHOW!KERCHOW!***

Facing yet another horde of monsters intent on ripping out her throat, Celes really wished she could afford to lapse into shock again. Or just wake up from this nightmare. Deep down inside though, she knew it just wasn't going to happen.

She was going to have to ride this nightmare out.

Ranma spared a glance at the katana in his hand, surprised to see it still intact, despite being immersed in acid. The metal shone just as brightly, just as cleanly, without any sign of corrosion.

It was a mystery, but one he'd gladly explore later, but not now. It was enough to know he had another friend now who was useful in a fight.

To celebrate his new partnership, he split the skull of another Bug. Needless to say, the Bug did not share the joy.

Had they been capable of physically doing so, the Elder's eyebrow ridges might have perked up another notch.

The Hard Meat besieging the _ooman_ vehicle were nothing new.

But what was fighting them WAS.

Leaping from building to building as he was, the Elder couldn't get a very good look, but what was spinning and capering on the roof of the shuddering and lurching vehicle had the basic SHAPE of an _ooman_ but had the tail and slick dark skin of a Hard Meat..but moved like a Yautja, maybe even faster.

Of equal interest was the fact that it was wearing clothes...Clothes of a type that the Elder had last seen on a certain _ooman_.

And there! Was that-? Yes, it was. The flash of metal! A familiar blade, wielded in unfamiliar appendages!

As he watched the Strange Meat use the heirloom weapon to cut apart several more Hard Meat as it swung and twirled about its position atop the speeding vehicle, the Elder felt a thrill as he did when he found a new and wholly unexpected prey.

 _Oh, this hunt was becoming most interesting!_

It seemed to Ranma as if so many Bugs were coming up on the ambulance that they might as well have been PUSHING the struggling vehicle along with their efforts.

Kick, punch, parry, dodge, throw, kick, spike, elbow, duck, whirl, spike, whirl again. It was like a demonic game of Twister(god how he remembered Nabiki had blackmailed him into a game of that, then thrown him to the wolves when the others had come in and caught him in a 'compromising position') with cannibalistic mutant insects trying to share the mat...by eating the player.

Two more Bugs leaped at him. He shot his tail forward, but instead of spearing either of them with it, he rammed the tail spike into the truck roof, then used the muscular tail to whip himself forward, meeting one of the Bugs with a chitin-cracking kick, while skewering the other with his purloined blade.

Trying not to think of how much longer the dented, acid-smoking, metal under him could hold up, Ranma concentrated on keeping the next wave of monsters off.

Celes caught a glimpse in the (somehow still attached) rear view side mirrors of several Bugs sideboarding along the flanks of the ambulance, creeping towards her.

"Oh no you don't."

The hovercraft lurched and lunged for a utility pole.

*SCCCRRROOOOUUUNNNNNNNGGGGGG*

Hard plastic pole meet moving metal-and lost. Two Bugs were scrapped off by the impromptu side-scratcher.

On the roof, as the utility pole bent, the fiber optics conduits it was holding aloft came down. Ranma reached up, grabbed hold of the still-taut wire as it approached, and pulled it down, even as he leaped over it. The two Bugs behind him were less lucky, catching the cable in their ribs and getting clotheslined off the ambulance.

But the ambulance had lost a little more momentum hitting the pole. And there were still many more Bugs coming in hard and fast.

Celes tried to divide her attention between keeping the ambulance moving straight and level, fending off the Bugs intent on climbing inside the cab with her, and remembering where the ambulance was. 'Mudville' might be a relatively small community, but one COULD get lost in its urban roadways, especially in bad weather and when being chased by ravenous xenomorphs.

As a street sign flashed by, Celes thought she recognized the street address. Sure enough, there was a familiar sight; one of the many drainage canals running through the town, and there a familiar bridge! Across that, she knew, and past the neighborhood of connexes beyond and they could get to relatively open ground for a straight run to the spaceport!

As best as she was able, she gunned it for the bridge.

The Bugs sensed a choke point ahead, a place to overwhelm the moving Us-Not-Us and kill their mobility. There was a vague sense of a plan, to hit the moving obstacle over, tip it over into the canal, where it could be opened up almost at leisure and the Us-Not-Us finally dealt with.

The black mass picked up its pace into a full blown charge.

As the ambulance hit the bridge, Nanami felt the foul intent welling up behind them. She wondered briefly and gloomily if Hybrids suffered adversely from stress; she was having entirely too many of these moments.

"Oh shit, They're going to hit us hard." She braced herself in the rear cabin, setting another improvised spear in place against anything coming in the back. Beside her, Rally dazedly nodded and set herself, not bothering to check the remaining rounds in the gun she'd retrieved from Nanami, just readying herself for what would explode on them next.

It was an almost solid wedge of chittering, clawing, hissing, alien flesh that punched at the ambulance as it flew across the bridge. Almost a combined organism, driven by inhuman hunger and rage.

In the flood-engorged waters raging beside and under the bridge, something boiled and came to life.

Like some angry river god, dark water cascading off its rounded armor, the ED-290 erupted from the depths of the canal.

 **#"FOR THE EMPEROR!"#**

 ***BBBBRRRRAAAAPPPPPP!SKROWSKROWSKROW!FFFSSSHHTTTT!***

Heavy machine gun rounds, micro-missiles, and plasma bolts rippled out in fans of destruction, shredding anything luckless enough to be caught in their arc. The column of Bugs crowding the bridge apron suddenly came apart as an unexpected rain of hypersonic metal hail and electro-plasmic fire sliced into them from below and one side. Heavy caliber bullets punched into exoskeletons, imparting their energies, churning internal tissues into acidic mush, or punching out large hunks of shell as they passed through to exit alien bodies. Bolts of plasma hit and expanded into burning blasts, melting away chitin and inducing spectacular chemical reactions in the insane chemical stew of alien blood. A volley of RPGs rocketed into the air, their glowing paths arcing for the bridge.

Seeing the fireballs erupting behind in the rearview mirrors, Celes' eyes went wide and she reflexively stepped on the accelerator.

As if somehow sensing its own possible demise, the battered ambulance channeled extra power from SOMEWHERE and found the speed, shooting forward.

Just in time, it turned out, as the bridge heaved and dropped from behind the tail of the vehicle.

The bridge, and several Bugs skittering about on it, just vanished into a cloud of metal and concrete fragments, mixed with pulverized xenomorph.

Nanami and Rally almost fell out the back of the ambulance as it tipped up and bolted, the battered doors falling open and threatening to pitch the two women out. Wide-eyed themselves, they clutched at the door frame and each other, blinking and wincing against the thunder, roar, and horizontal sleet of finely fragmented roadway consumed in fire behind them.

Above them, they were dimly aware of Ranma barely hanging on for his own life as the ambulance shot out of the conflagration and to dubious safety.

The ED-290's brain noticed, in passing, the escape of the ambulance as it flew out of sight. The war machine had a much larger selection of targets surging in towards it, and it gleefully(or, as gleefully as its biocybernetic brain could replicate) rose to meet them.

Bugs came racing to the concrete edge of the canal, only to meet death coming at them the other way.

 ***SHOWKASHOWKASHOWKA*FRAUUMMMPPPH!***

The edge of the canal was scalloped by high explosives

 *****SHHROOOWWSHHHH*****

An entire concrete embankment powdered under the assault of overkill, sending the dirt mounded up behind sliding down into the canal.

The ED-290 obligingly stepped up onto the impromptu ramp and began to ascend to street level, its arms panning back and forth, sewing death as fresh targets came into sight.

The many Bugs provided it with plenty of targets.

 **#"DEATH TO XENOS! PURGE WITH FIRE!"#**

 ****SHABOOM!BOOM!BOOM!*SHRRRAAKKKK*****

 **#"BOOM FOR THE BOOM GOD!"#**

 *****FFASSSHHOOKKK!(((BLAM!)))*****

The Elder cursed as he dove for cover from an RPG sailing overhead. Within moments the canal canyon and surrounding neighborhood had become a kill-zone as pyrotechnics flared. Projectiles chewed into the walls or, worse yet, ricocheted. High explosives and shrapnel were bouncing everywhere, taking a massive toll of the packed Hard Meat. Several structures just exploded, tossing pieces organic and inorganic about with wild abandon.

It wasn't just the Hard Beat getting mowed down, though. The Elder had seen two of his party torn apart by the _ooman_ automated weapon, the hunters too slow to get out of the way of the raging torrents of firepower being pumped out. The deaths lacked dignity; the error of getting too close to a feeding frenzy and having it literally explode in one's face. The _ooman_ war machine likely wasn't even deliberately targeting the hunters, but was indiscriminately staking out its killing ground against all comers.

Worse yet, its presence here allowed the primary prey to escape. He'd have to circle wide to avoid the sensors and firepower of the damned machine to resume his pursuit of the sword-holder.

He ducked back down again as the roof of a small building crashed back down to earth not far away, trailing smoke and flames.

A cheerful but ultimately uninterested voice asked, "Name, Planet of Transit Origination and Purpose of Visit?"

The woman across the counter pressed her thumb into the scanner, "Larry Vincent, New Boston Colonies, Sigma Gamma. I'm on a business trip."

A brown eyebrow on the woman's slender Caucasian features raised a bit as she looked over the data feed from the passport. Her eyes double checked the picture with the actual person, "Are the cyberization records correct?"

"Yep, still have all the original parts." The woman stated as she signed the entry form.

"Please use your other thumb." A small frown crossed the lips of the clerk. An inconsistency between the woman's response and the document's contents caught her attention. She turned her eyes to a scruffy looking man in the corner and waved him over. The clerk quietly but obviously whispered, "Um, boss I don't think she's who this I.D. says she is."

Rally glanced over the new man. His scruffy appearance may have fooled the casual observer but, she had seen through better disguises. She noted didn't move like the slacker he was pretending to be. His eyes were too focused. Rally looked across the counter and read the new name badge, "Is there a problem officer?"

The I.D. she had bought was not perfect. A class two lower leg replacement was clearly noted in the data file but not in the actual passport. The gunsmith frowned as she remembered this awkward moment. The image of Huges blurred slightly as the shared memory deviated from script. Rally and the security officer looked at each other for an uncomfortable moment. He joked, "If I'm going to be dreaming about you could you at least go naked?"

A small chuckle came from Rally's lips. The ever faithful Maes was flirting with her, "You and Roy are both incorrigible you know that."

"You had a great set of legs you know that." Maes looked at Rally with a set of sad eyes. The rectangle frames he wore made his eyes seem larger as he teared up a bit.

Rally looked down at her legs and asked, "Whats wrong with my legs now? I mean there's that one scar on my hip but you've never seen that. The injection Celes gave me probably fixed that."

Maes stated with a cold calculated tone he used when separating himself from a situation, "Aside from the fact they most likely belong to a corpse that's been dissolved in alien blood?"

Rally stretched out her leg and looked at it, "Oh, so this is some grief stricken dream where you're supposed to reflect on me and my life?"

"I watched you die." Maes stated with absolute certainty, "Two bugs, close combat, nobody survives that."

"Me get taken down by an over grown roach? As if." Rally scoffed at the notion, "I eat bugs for breakfast." She only had a fuzzy idea as to just how literal that statement was.

He chuckled for a moment and shook his head, "Remind me never to come to one of your barbeques."

She gave him a grin her voice purred out, "Next barbeque I'll wear that tiny blue number and give you a good look at my legs."

The feral portion of Rally's biology turned up the heat twenty degrees. Her calculating mind knew he was a strong mate. She knew he provided well for his current wife and child. His female also possessed the maternal instincts she did not favor. Her dream self molded her body to his side, "Maybe I don't even need that little blue 'kini."

Maes shook his head in agreement. The vixen in his dream seemed so real. Logic and experience railed against his libido practically screaming that this wasn't Rally. He barely croaked out, "But Gracia."

Rally put a finger to his lips and silenced him, "Will be joining us. You know I swing that way."

The gunsmith turn and looked away, distracted by something unseen in this shared space. Rally took a few steps away. She gave him a little wave and struck a cheesecake pose, "See you soon crew cut."

Celes' drove like a bat out of hell. Even Ranma admitted he left a few claw marks on the arm rests. Slick roads and narrow curves gave him several scares as the truck slid around street corners like a race track. The ambulance came to stop as it rounded one last corner slowly. They jumped a small curb and came to rest in a parking lot. Celes slumped forward her head shaking slightly as she white knuckled the controls, "I think..."

She took a breath, "I lost 'em."

Ranma bit his tongue and nodded in agreement. They traveled far enough and fast enough to lose even the most tenacious fiancee. A second though amended the first, why would he ever want to lose Kodachi? It was a mystery that could be sorted out another time. He looked at the blond driver and asked, "Why here?"

Rally cracked an eye as she looked out the back of their transportation and shook her head. She slowly rubbed her head against Nanami's lap and teased, "I could get used to this."

Her hand reached up and pulled down the red head's face. She pressed her lips against Nanami's and slid her tongue into her mouth. The biologist pressed her tongue against Rally's and the two muscles mingled. Nanami pulled back after a moment, "Welcome back."

Rally's hand caressed Nanami's cheek. The bounty hunter forced herself to a sitting position. She gathered up her rifle. Rally forced her eyes away from Nanami and looked over the still sleeping doctor and the girl. Rally opened the door and stepped into the deserted parking lot. Nanami watched Rally's long hybrid tail sway elegantly behind her. The hybrid's sensual curves and graceful movements captivated Nanami.

The cold rain spilled across Rally's body. She looked up as if thanking the sky for the cold shower. Nanami stuck her head out of the back of the battered vehicle, "What's going on! Why did we stop?"

"Lunch." Rally replied bluntly. Her quiet voice cut through the rain like a dinner bell. Celes, Ranma and Nanami all latched onto the idea. Human morals and thoughts followed basic instinct as all four noted the closed state of the establishment. Rally normally kept to a personal honor code that prohibited theft and murder. However, she knew she might just kill for a nice juicy steak right about now. On some level she also knew she had a choice but it wasn't about stealing. The true choice was to eat now or hunt later. Part of her knew, if it came down to hunting later, she wouldn't be too discriminating in what she hunted. Choosing the lesser of two evils she causally manipulated the lock with the flat edge of her knife. The establishment's front door easily gave way and Rally walked into the closed steakhouse like she owned it.

Nanami blinked repeatedly as her brain went through a reboot of sorts. Rally's sudden kiss had left her hot. Her eyes darted around looking for any threat. When she came up empty on that excuse, she rationalized. They would be in lock down for weeks if not months. Anything in the refrigerators would go bad in that time. The dry goods and frozen stuff might keep for months but the power staying on uninterrupted was unlikely and the frozen goods would spoil. Her eyes turned to the sound of the clanging of two doors as a half naked Ranma and Celes just followed Rally's lead. The red headed hybrid shouted out, "What about them."

Rally shouted back to her protege, "Celes help the doctor with our patients."

The blond nearly tripped over her own tail at the casual remark. Ranma stopped at the back door. He nodded to Celes and she hurried out of the rain. Ranma and Nanami released the gurney from the back of the ambulance. He looked around casting his senses about searching out any potential threat in the area.

In a low voice he warned, "We should get back to the port."

"I know." She shook her head, "I don't think taking Rally to the port right now is a good idea."

He grumbled a bit, "Why not."

"She's still adjusting. The tonsil inspection she just gave me was a pretty good hint that she's not exactly stable yet." Nanami looked at the man and child on the gurney.

Ranma looked at the restaurant and spoke quickly, "What'd ya mean not stable. She's not sick or something?"

"Look you and 'Dashi were created like this. I got three days of hyper-sleep, Celes and Winry did some kind of cocooning thing. She's been fighting through the change on tiny meals and cat naps." Nanami looked at Ranma's blank expression and palmed her face.

She decided to put it in very simple terms, "If she doesn't get rest and food soon we may be dealing with something a lot more dangerous than bugs and hunters."

The male hybrid shook his head. He hadn't had many opportunities to observe the woman. Ultimately he decided to back Nanami's call and decided with the lunch plans despite his nervousness.

Rally was happy that the restaurant used gas grills. She wasn't a technological dunce by any measure but this made things easy. A slab of flesh a bit of seasoning and a liberal application of fire would suit her needs just fine. It didn't take her long to figure out the basics of getting the commercial equipment hot. She worked her way over to the refrigerated goods thoroughly indulging in that portion of her mind that was gleeful at the prospect of a nice rare steak. Rally opened the first refrigerator and began pulling out a few sauces and defrosted cuts of beef. A green thing that passed for lettuce was tossed on the preparation table followed by the seasonings and oils.

Celes joined her mentor in the kitchen. The scent of red meat lingering in the air causing her to lick her lips, "What are you going to make?"

"I'm gonna start with these and go from there." Placing as many giant t-bone steaks into the grill she boasted, "See if you can find uh... something tasty to go with."

She dove into the large refrigerator and retrieved prepared mixtures waiting to either be baked, fried or grilled for a lunch rush indefinitely postponed by bug invasion. Any reservations Nanami and Ranma had about looting the local diner were buried with instinctual need. Their hybrid metabolisms quickly demanded additions to their reserves. They watched the two ebony skinned women move around the kitchen with purpose as they grilled, boiled and fried enough servings for twenty. For a moment Ranma took in the eye candy of the two hybrids cooking dinner. Rally's body armor had been burned away across her toned stomach. Her top showed off her sculpted abs now rather than protect any vital organs. Celes clothing had been completely shed. Her nude form moved around the kitchen completely naturally.

Nanami teased in his ear, "You just love a woman over a hot oven don't you."

It was all Ranma could do to suppress the aroused groan that bubble up out of him as Nanami pressed into him. His hand reached around her waist solidly gripping her ass, "It has its charms."

Wiggling back a bit she teased, "I better help then."

Ranma groaned as the naked hybrid swayed over to help the other girls. Mentally, Nanami was banging her head up against a wall. She knew now was not the time to drag Ranma over to one of the booths and have her way with the stud. Yet, she still wanted it. Part of her knew it would only take the slightest slip and they would have an orgy. The only thing that stopped her was something else tugging at the back of her mind.

Elsewhere, Shayla-shayla sneezed and wondered why she suddenly felt as if her girlfriend was cheating on her. Her eyebrow furrowed as she amended that statement in her mind. She liked guys and didn't have a boyfriend. Why did she feel like she was about to miss out on a really good time? She wondered why she wasn't being invited to join in?

She shook her head and muttered to her self as her thoughts cleared, "They better be yummy."

The red head rolled over and promptly scratched her boob as she adjusted her bra and returned to sleeping off the sedatives the nice gentlemen provided for her.

"But its not done yet!" Celes watched as Rally cut off a half done piece of meat. Blood and fat oozed from the fresh cut into the grill's flames. The blond berated her mentor ash she slipped a cut of beef her mouth, "You shouldn't eat raw beef!"

Rally savored the half cooked morsel as it slid across her tongue. The lightly seared outside and the cool flesh within provided a wonderful contrast to her. She decided to rub it in a bit and let out an almost erotic moan while she projected a wave of pleasure at Celes. After she swallowed Rally purred out, "Oh I think it's perfect."

Celes blushed wildly as she pulled her potatoes and stuffing out of the oven. Off to the side Nanami rolled her eyes, "Seriously."

Ranma fought down several old memories about a girl, she somehow destroyed a kitchen with no more than a boiling pot of water, two cups of ice, a teaspoon of sugar and various common herbs. He clearly remembered this girl claimed her cooking was just as good. He stuck his head into the kitchen and saw Rally cut off another strip of beef. She put the still bloody strip into her mouth and teased the other women. He took several calming breaths and thought to himself, "Alright, at least she is eating her own cooking."

"That isn't funny Rally." Nanami scalded as she went about putting something of a salad together. The joke was funny the first time but if she kept projecting lust like that she might just do something about it, "It can't possibly be... murph... ummmm... gulp." The red head found her mouth stuffed with a juicy morsel. The gunsmith leaned in and licked a bit of juice off the red head's lip. Rally's tongue teased her lips for a moment. Rally looked at the biologist as with a cocky grin and all but dared her to tell her she was wrong.

Ranma looked at his fellow escapee and watched her reaction. Her tail tensed a bit as her eyes widened from the initial shock of having something foreign forced into her mouth. Her expression softened and she smiled, "Damn, that, wow."

The gunsmith joked, "I don't think I'll ever eat anything more done than rare again."

Nanami pulled out a knife and cut off a hunk of meat from the grill as Rally turned the rest over again, "What did you do to it?"

Shrugging the gunsmith took another piece for herself, "Fire plus beef... yyyuuuummmmm."

Reasonably sure that the kitchen wasn't going to suddenly become more dangerous than the bug infestation down the road Ranma eased into the kitchen.

Rally cut another large slice of beef off of the grill and held it out to Celes, "Come on it's good."

Celes hesitated for a moment, "Ah, I'd like mine a little less bloody please."

"Suit your self." Rally took a bite out of the bloody cut of beef, "Not like a little blood will turn you into a vampire or anything."

The blond broke out into a wail of despair, "I've turned Rally into a blood drinking monster!"

Nanami joked with the hybrid beside her at the grill, "Wonder why it skipped a generation?"

Ranma looked on slightly enviously as their tail's and legs gently touched. The two females were definitely flirting and petting.

Rally laughed a bit then took a large spoonful out of the microwave container containing the macaroni and cheese. She offered the container to Nanami as they both took turns tending the beef on the fire, "I blame the father."

"Buah!" Ranma exclaimed in between mouthfuls of bread and potatoes, "Not my fault!"

Celes eyes narrowed as she took offense at the joke, "He's not my father. He doesn't even look any older than I am!"

"Hey, I ain't no kid!" Ranma puffed up as he tried to defend his ego.

Nanami quickly quipped, "In actual time you're only about fourteen months old. Barely an infant."

Rally playfully taunted from the grill, "Really takes robbing the cradle to a whole other level doesn't it."

The red head rolled her eyes as she devoured another bloody bite. Ranma sat down beside Celes at the table and patted her on the shoulder, "We've created monsters."

"Blood drinking, cradle robbing monsters." Rally turned around and placed four juicy cuts of beef in front of both Celes and Ranma, "Now behold, your Monster Chef!"

The two looked at the cuts of meat in front of them wearily. Sure he had seen Winry demolish a rack of raw pork ribs, bones and all coming out apparently unharmed but that didn't make him confident it was as good as the girls were implying. Nanami and Rally continued to cut off pieces from the grill as they got hot enough to be considered done. The two traded jokes and occasionally sent a teasing remark at himself and Celes. The blond hybrid stuck to her side dishes unwilling to indulge in the dubiously grilled meat.

"Are you really only a year old?" Celes' irritated voice quietly asked Ranma as they started in on their food.

Ranma looked her over then shrugged, "Uh, I... kinda, Nanami told me I'm some kind of clone. I sorta died a few hundred years ago tho."

"Oh..." Celes' took another mouthful of something from her plate and chewed on it for a moment. She was finding it harder and harder to be hostile to Nanami and this new guy, "So was she the one that made you, us?"

Ranma shook his head as he finished the bit in his mouth. He had to admit the woman had a way with the grill, "She was workin' inna other division."

From across the kitchen Nanami supplied, "I was working on biological weapons. Every thing from anti-bug plagues to t-virus counter virals and vaccines. Even the occasional beauty cream."

Celes looked at the older woman as Nanami confessed a bit about her self, "I didn't know it at the time but I was both researcher and research specimen. It wasn't until some kind of accident or attack that I found out the truth and ended up with Ranma and Kodachi."

Rally sat down at the table as she worked on her fifth steak and fourth serving of potatoes, "So, you two are on the run. With the other girl in the link?"

Nanami grimaced. The remark was coolly professional. They hadn't committed any crime but, Umbrella's will was as good as law in many places. The bounty hunter pressed through silence, "Just who's property are you?"

Ranma's eyes narrowed at Rally's comment. Her flirtatious playfulness completely gone in an instant. His mouth opened but Nanami's hand settled on his thigh, "Wayland-Yatani-Umbrella." A silence folled that Nanami desperately tried to fill, "We were at a black box that was attacked a few weeks back."

The biologist tried to read the woman's expression but when that failed she made a gentle mental probe. The inky swirl of thoughts that greeted her pushed back. Celes' eyes darted around the table as those three words spilled out of Nanami's lips and the silence followed. The blond quickly asked trying to break the silence, "Who's that?"

The hindi-brittish woman swallowed her latest cut of beef, "Umbrella controls a lot of people and places in this sector Celes. Fortunately, Kessler kept Alpha-Ceti a bit out side of their reach."

Nanami and Ranam watched Rally trying to read her features trying to get a read on the woman. The male hybrid stated, "I hear a but coming."

"It all depends on how much they know." Rally pushed a bit of food around on her plate, "Kessler isn't the biggest gun around but they hold a lot of key contracts and patents. When it comes to super density ceramics and superconductive materials they control a good third to half of each market. The Wayland group specializes in things closer to Nanami's line of work."

"As long as Alpha-Ceti keeps production quotas, Kessler wouldn't care if Umbrella poked around a bit." The bounty hunter shook her head. She narrowed her ramblings, "The Umbrella division may step on every toe and face between here and Old Earth to get you back if they know everything. A stable super solider formula is a gold mine. I don't doubt that we could go toe to toe with some of the best full body prosthesis around. If they think your boat is just a fleeing pencil pusher, they might just play wait and see if you become a liability. Ultimately, if they think you have something, someone of value they are going to come after you. Another scenario is they think you're a loose end and decide you need to have an accident. So how much do they know, how well did you cover your tracks?"

Ranma shrugged, "Kinda just assumed they'd be coming after me eventually."

A slightly defeated look crossed Nanami's face, "We don't know. The base was reduced to plasma and slag. Carthy was as paranoid as they came he had leverage on everyone and everything from his second in command to the environment techs. The STARS group that attacked the station had a plan we can only hope they were targeting the backups as well. I got my hands on his blackmail vault but we really don't have any way to use it."

Rally frowned at the mention of the STARS group, "It would be a safe bet they tried. Even odds on them actually succeeding. Do you know anything about the cell that attacked?"

Finishing the last of the meat in front of him Ranma offered up, "That Carthy guy said something about somebody named Garrison. Wondered if he was getting help from Nanami's old boy friend."

"Well at least we have a smoke screen. Their best will be cleaning house trying to find any traitors." Digesting the fragments of information and her lunch. She wondered just what Nanami's ex represented in the larger equation. Rally filed it all away for later. A her eyes caught sight of the doctor easing him self off the gurney trying to be quiet, "We can worry about it later. Right now. We should catch the doctor before he gets us into more trouble."

A sharp crash filled the air as the gurney the doctor and child were on fell over. It was all the warning the hybrids had before the doctor made a rush for the door. Rally was out of her chair before she even finished speaking. The gun smith vaulted over several tables and sprinted ahead of the panicked doctor with the child in his arms. She placed her directly in front of the exit, "Doc!"

A panicked set of eyes darted back and forth as the surgeon looked for a way out. Celes and Ranma boxed him in. Nanami called out from behind, "Guys don't!"

The young psychic felt the doctor's confusion and panic. Nanami's features slowly melted back into her human guise. The obsidian exoskeleton sunk into pale irish-asian features. The red headed biologist called out, "Rally, let him see you human. Talk to him!"

Black scars that peppered the doctor's body seemed to expand outward as his hybrid genes activated. As his panic increased the web of inky veins slowly began to solidify into his new features.

The gunsmith cursed. She moved the barrel of her rifle away from her target slowly, "Slowly Doc, you don't want to hurt the girl."

Her left hand left the barrel grip as she pointed at the ceiling holding both her hands up, "I didn't drag you out of that hospital to eat you..."

Thick tendrils of hair slowly melted back into a page boy cut and her skin returned to her dark hindi-brittish features.

Nanami cautiously approached from behind. She kept her voice even and loud, "Doctor Winchester, can you still speak?"

It took the man a moment but he managed to form thought into words, "Miss,Vincent..." He quickly began to attach familiar names to human faces, "Doctor Jinnai..."

"Yea Doc?" Rally eased back a bit giving the man some room as she lowered her weapon. He watched as Nanami's form returned to her enhanced birth form. His eyes wandered appreciatively across her curves for a moment as he took in her naked body.

He moved to the man in tattered battle attire with a sword in one hand and then to the blushing blond who moved behind the door. Celes wailed, "Why didn't anybody tell me I was naked!"

Ranma sarcastically quipped, "You were a seven and a half foot tall amazon less than an hour ago what did you think happened to your clothing."

"Ranma..." Nanami hedged out as she looked at her pack mate. Her eyes narrowed as she glared at him.

The doctor looked at the kitchen door for a moment then back at the gun toting woman. She smiled at him and laughed. His face took on an expression of complete confusion. His weight shifted to his back leg and he considering his options. He eyed the window to the left wondering if he could make a break for it.

Rally's chuckles continued for a moment. Celes' embarrassment, Ranma's foot in mouth, the doctor's confusion and Nanami's irritation all seemed rather amusing in light of the fact that only a few kilometers away a horde of bugs, hunters and the weather just tried to kill them.

Nanami stated in a calm diplomatic voice, "Doctor Winchester we aren't going to hurt you."

The doctor ignored the woman's voice as his mind felt the presence of those around him. New sensations demanded attention as he realized he could even feel the sleepy mind of the young child in his arms. He felt the man's impatience with the situation, the girl's complete embarrassment, the red head's concern, all of these new minds slowly registered with him in their own fuzzy ways. Rally tilted her head to the side and smiled. She slung her rifle over her shoulder and walked past him, "Well come on. Let me throw on some steaks for you."

He blinked in confusion and asked, "Steaks?"

Rally shrugged and stated factually, "You're hungry."

"I'm hungry..." He puzzled for a moment. Then decided that eating seemed like an irresistible idea.

Rally bit her lip softly as she prepared another meal. Celes had taken to scrambling around the restaurant looking anything to wear. Nanami, Dr. Winchester and Ranma were watching the still unconscious kid as they ate. She was happy with trading cooking for space to think. The sound of Ranma's foot steps behind her broke her concentration. The tag line floating through her head read, "Too much to do, too little time." She turned to the resurrected martial artist and asked, "How quickly can you get that shuttle back here?"

The remark from someone who hadn't even seemed to take notice of his presence startled him a bit, "Uh..."

She turned around with another platter of meat and placed it in his hands, "We need to swing by the hospital and then get back to the port as soon as possible."

He looked at her with a bit of disbelief, "The hospital!" His disbelief turned into out right confusion, "We just got away from there."

She looked at him and bluntly stated, "Look it's just a quick fly by. You drop me off I grab my racer and we go. Hell, probably not even going to land. Make sure the place isn't on fire then back to the port."

Ranma looked at her stating with authority, "And off this rock."

A sour expression crossed her face. She forced her lips into a neutral position, "Yeah, that'd be for the best."

"Nice little corner out of the way where nobody is looking." Ranma caught the bitter hint in her voice he tried to be positive, "Nice long training trip."

The gunsmith laughed. His off hand remark coming out like a cheap come on, "Right, you go play cave man."

Ranma frowned at dismissal of his idea. The logic was simple enough to him, if civilization was out to get you get away from civilization. He retorted looking for answers, "What about all those scanners and shit?"

"Look Nanami may not have known the ins and outs of staying under the radar but I do." Her eyes locked onto his, "Heading straight for the middle of nowhere is your best bet for ending up in a cage or dead."

Rally elaborated as she returned to the dining room, "Space is an empty unforgiving bitch. You don't just wander around and stumble upon a world that will take to terraforming much less a habitable rock."

"Well what then?" The entire table looked at the pair as Rally offered Ranma her take on surviving their situation.

The gunsmith paused for a bit unsure just what to say she let a few place bubble out, "New Pacifica, Mars III, Gamma Theta, Lincoln. I don't know. I've never had to deal with the Umbrella group. I'll have to do some research."

Ranma smirked at her as she just admitted she had no idea where to go. Rally fired back, "The kind of research that involves talking to people, people who know people and money."

Nanami chuckled slightly at Rally and shook her head. "Don't bother with the research. You're making a flawed assumption ," she said with a smile on her face.

"How so?" Rally asked crossing her arms. "You think you're just going to find a habitable planet out there?"

"I'm thinking we don't need to," Nanami replied, "You forget our genetic makeup. I've done the test myself. We can survive, even thrive in environments that would kill a normal human stone dead in moments. We don't need a planet that can normally support human life. We just need to pick some Xenobiological hellhole and set down. As long as the planet is marginally capable of supporting some kind of life we're completely in the clear."

Rally blinked then frowned. "So where exactly are you going to find a planet like that?"

Nanami simply smiled. "There's an entire database of them, planets that are off limits to terraforming due to the native restrictions. Most have no human presence at all besides the occasional research station, and with the way funding works half those stations are completely abandoned, just waiting for someone, like us, to bring them back online, and many of those very same systems are located deep into the ass-end of nowhere. It's somewhere we can come to terms with what we've become without having to play normal."

Rally paused for a minute. "You sure these will be safe? I mean, most of those planets are bona fide Death Worlds."

"Sure… and if you don't like those we could always settle on a planet where the Terraforming went south."

"Wait!" Rally exclaimed, "Are you seriously suggesting we move to a Black Rock?"

"Sure, why not? We can survive on them… hell, I've been working up a list! Chiron, Pandora, Char, Crematoria…"

"You're insane."

"Quite probably…"

Humans seemed to favor the cold and wet places. He had hunted many worth humans in such places. The cold and wet did not matter to the elder Yajuta. Such adversities only pushed him harder. All that mattered was the hunt. He had come to a realization. The sword-bearer was most definitely not human. He almost had his prey cornered at the last human space port. Only the code prevented from taking his skull. His prey was clearly protecting his pack-mates. The wait however proved fruitful. The not-human alpha had revealed so much more of his potential as he used something of the old ways to decimate a swarm.

The he trailed the not-human creature more. It was curious how the creature aided the humans. The hunter followed at a distance while studying the creature. A human war machine helped the sword bearer escape the swarm. The human machine had slowed his prowl considerably. It forced him to go around it's killing ground. The attack robot managed to cull almost a third of the swarm. The creatures broke off. Their blood-lust sated by the flesh of their fallen.

The elder thought he had lost his prey, until he saw the pillar of warm air. He gauged the distance to be much to far away to reach on foot before his quarry moved away. It was distasteful but he this was no longer about pride. Personal curiosity had become far more important than any trophy he might take. He wanted to know just who was the true master of the blade and the old ways.

His device signaled three transports and the elder was ferried towards his prey with utmost haste. This was the privilege of age and rank. Even if others considered the tactics unsporting he would have his curiosity satisfied. He would unravel this mystery.

The hybrids waited for the shuttle to return. Nanami gave Dr. Winchester received a crash course in all things hybrid. The two traded ideas and innuendo, while talking about their shared condition. Celes and Ranma did their best to avoid such things. The younger pair exchanged interested glances, but Celes felt more confusion than actual attraction. Her inexperience and personal issues prevented her from accurately identifying the attraction and lust. Ranma did his best to keep his thoughts on the _older_ hybrids. He feared Rally's wrath if she decided he harmed Celes in any way. He eyed Rally a few times. Clearly he would have to approach her.

Rally just hung off to the side. She seemed even quieter than usual. She knew the attraction she felt. Normally such feelings reserved for women. She bit her lip and wondered just how adverse Nanami and Kodachi would be to sharing with a third. Perhaps the doctor could be trained to keep up. A curious smile settled onto her lips as she indulged the lecherous thoughts.

The tired group assumed human form to fit into uniforms pilfered from the restaurant. Rally opted just for a change of pants. She kept the remains of her body armor for a top. The others ended up with green and white shirts, and pants held up with suspenders covered in tacky pins. The small boat, from the firefly, landed in the street leading to the restaurant. The steakhouse's patrons quickly exited the building and ran through the steady rain towards the shuttle. A form simmered into the visible spectrum. A Yajuta transport landed between the hybrids and the restaurant. Four hunters exited the craft. Another transport landed across the street on the far side of the Beagle's boat. Six hunters exited the far craft. Another boat dropped down low and three more hunters jumped out. The hunters landed on the roof of the ambulance then jumped to the ground. The predator's boat past low and a giant hunter jumped out of it.

Ranma and Celes shared a word of profanity while readying their weapons.

"Don't!" Rally grabbed the barrels of Ranma and Cele's rifles. "They want something."

Ranma looked at the gunslinger with a bit of disbelief. "They were pretty intent on taking our heads earlier."

"Look they are a bunch of crazy aliens that play by their own rules." Rally barely held back the two younger hybrids. She hesitantly said, "They want something."

In a low tone Celes replied sarcastically, "Probably our heads."

Rally kept her head moving trying to keep track of the hunters encircling them. "Charles, Celes take the girl to the shuttle."

The doctor with girl in his arm arms follow behind Celes and hurried to the shuttle. The hunters made no move to stop them. The giant hunter strode forward from where he landed. He roared out then shouted shouted, "Sword bearer!"

"That answers that question." Rally muttered, "Get ready."

The elder threw some of his weapons and armor to the ground. The massive Yajuta made a great show of it. His deep voice reverberated as he spoke. "End my hunt sword bearer!"

Rally cursed under her breath as she saw his muscles tense. There wouldn't be much talking in the near future.

He leveled a massive sword at the group of hybrids. The ancient hunter now wore armor only on his feet, legs and arms. He stood at least a head and a half taller than the surrounding aliens. His exposed head and chest were layered in scars and tattoos from a life time of hunts.

The broken English communicated exactly what he wanted and what the stakes were. Rally looked over at Ranma and asked, "Think you can take him?"

He looked at the massive ancient with an even more imposing weapon. Ranma sarcastically replied, "The giant ancient alien king with a sword bigger than I am?" He drawled out, "No problem."

"Well shooting him would probably piss the rest of them off." Rally eyed the perimeter of Yajuta. The bounty hunter looked at Nanami. "Any ideas?"

Nanami added in a hushed tone, "Could we make a break for it?"

Rally looked at the still hovering ship. "We'd need a distraction."

Ranma deadpanned, "Like fighting their king?"

"This is a bad idea." Rally's head frantically searched the floating ship for anything that looked like it might explode if she shot it. The gunsmith began counting off targets. She found thirteen hunters and their king. The observing hunters formed a large ring around the area.

A deafening battle cry washed across the soon to be battle field. The behemoth charged at Rally, Ranma and Nanami. Ranma unsheathed his sword and charged he let out a cry of his own as he sprinted forward.

Rally and Nanami jumped back away from the two males. The two women landed in a several meters away. Nanami gave the bounty hunter a desperate look. Rally shook her head. She whispered, "Wait it out or fight?"

"What?"

"Your call. I can't fight all of them alone." Rally watched as claymore met katana in a shower of sparks. The two blades ground against each other for a moment. Ranma was thrown back by the superior mass and leverage. He rolled with the blow tumbling away. The ancient hunter charged in again pressing his assault.

"Look, either we let Ranma fight it out or we do something." Rally's eyes checked off each of the hunters watching the fight with rapt attention. "I'd much rather do something to help."

"I don't have any weapons." Nanami grimaced. She unloaded the last few rounds in the gun Celes gave her during the frantic escape.

Rally hissed out angrily, "You are a weapon, not just a test-tube jockey anymore."

Celes checked the last clip of ammo in her SMG. She grimaced and slid the half full clip back into position. She stuck her head out of the transport's hatch and watched the two swords clash. Her eyes tracked around the circle of armed hunters surrounding the two combatants. She hesitantly reached out to Rally's mind. "I'm out Rally."

A quiet telepathic voice answered back. "I know kitten."

Rally felt the weight of her own weapons. Half a clip in her rifle and another on her belt. Her handgun rested against her breast with a full clip in it. With a quiet but confident voice as she sent back, "Fight smart. Look for the boat's fire extinguishers, we need smoke."

Ranma cried out in pain as the giant sword clipped his left bicep. The hunter king taunted, "Faster human faster!"

Parrying blows from the massive sword was definitely out of the question. Every attack he was forced to meet with his blade left his body shaking. Each blow hit harder than the last. The hunter was testing him, working him up to his limit. Parrying the massive claymore quickly became a painful experience.

Rally and Nanami practically growled as they felt Ranma's pain. The test tube jockey decided she would fight. Nanami's mind reached out as she and Rally quickly began to put together a plan. Her eyes turned up ward as she found a subtitle target.

The two women share a nod out of the corner of their eyes. Rally's own mind reached out to Celes and Charles. "We need smoke now."

A roar rushed out of the hunter's lungs. The deafening roar shook the resurrected martial artist's bones. The razor sharp blade cut through the air horizontally. The hunt launched an impaling strike directly at Ranma's torso.

Ranma vaulted vertically into the air. His palm pressed against the flat of the enormous claymore. His hybrid fingers turned into cutting talons. His skin turned black and he discarded his human guise for more speed and power. His fingers dug into the blade. With his claw firmly buried into the alien steel he launched himself head first at the Yajuta king.

The doctor aided Celes as they scrambled through the shuttles compartment. The older man racked his brain for anything that could be used to make a smoke screen. His knowledge of basic chemistry and engine design served him well. He grabbed the young blonds arm before she could simply throw the canister and shoot at it. "Not like that." He held up two tanks of carbon dioxide and a tank of water. The doctor looted the life support systems for the necessary gasses. "We'll get much more smoke if we flood the area with this."

The two worked quickly setting up the two tanks to feed into the shuttle's engines. Celes left the doctor to his work. She stuck her head out of the transport and lined up her first shot.

Rally saw the clouds of smoke billowing out of the shuttle's thruster. Thick white smoke filled the air.

Nanami's mind assaulted the slave piloting the airborne transport. Her enraged psyche destroyed the slave's will in moments. The possessed slave gripped the controls and the craft and it dipped sharply to the side.

Rally's rifle thundered as she shot first. Her merciless aim picked off three young hunters before they even reacted. Several elder hunters fired upon her position. Nanami pulled her consciousness back to her own mind just in time to feel Rally drag her to the side. Her eyes widened as the airborne transport slammed into the one on the ground.

Celes fired at the two hunters she could see. The two hunters dove for cover slowing their approach on Rally.

Ranma's forehead slammed into the ancient alien. His vision blurred as he slammed into his opponent. Both males tumbled to the ground dropping their blades. Blood dripped from their wounds on their scalps.

"You are worthy!" The Yajuta cried out as he lunged at Ranma. The dazed hybrid reacted blindly. His poor footing left him few options. Ranma's arm barely deflected the massive over hand blow. Both bones in his left forearm shattered. The explosion from the two shuttles flung the two combatants back.

Rally rushed at the ambulance. Once behind cover she let go of Nanami's shirt. Rally's telepathic voice quickly and quietly spoke, "We gotta work quickly or they will box us in." She looked wildly from the side to side. "I'm going for that transport over there." She glanced at the Beagle's transport. Her eyes fixed on the hunters withdrawing to the one functional shuttle. "We need to take it out before it can take off."

"Your clan is cunning sword bearer!"

Ranma groaned as he grew new bones and an exoskeleton to reinforce the weak points on his forearms. Aggressive spikes pushed out of his elbows as war form grew in. The elder taunted his resonating voice bellowing out, "The females will make fine trophies!"

The hunter hissed in pleasure as the taunt had the desired effect. A crackle of bio electric energy illuminated the smoke cloud. His prey was finally showing him it's true potential. His opponent enraged and life energy filled the air. Ancient senses picked out the flare of anger. This creature would truly make a magnificent trophy. He focused his will concentrating on the glory that would be his.

Ranma's head turned towards a ball of blue light. Pure confidence slammed into the young male. The alien chi blast hit him with enough force to launch him back into the building across the street.

Rally watched her target fall. Her next two shots missed. A flare of blue light and the resonance of Ranma's pain took her concentration. The young hunter she was aiming at took cover. Meanwhile, the other two began to fire on her. Nanami broke towards the steakhouse. She recklessly dove head first through the window as the hunters started to fire on her.

Tiny shards of glass pierced Nanami's human skin. She tumbled like a gymnast as she hit the ground. Her body shifted reflexively to begin the healing process. A fire spread from her leg as she tried to stand. The hybrid fell to the floor and remained silent as she sat of the floor of the steak house. She looked down at her leg. A bolt from a hunter weapon stuck out of her lower leg. A nauseating sensation of pain and numbness assaulted her. Jagged barbs spiraled along it's length. A glow ooze dripped from the nock of the arrow. The device tore into her muscles with every finch.

Feeling Nanami's pain in the link Rally broke cover. Four rounds struck two targets knocking them to the ground. Rally could already see the next six seconds in her mind. The Yajuta grabbed an alien grenade from his armor. The blast would easily turn the ambulance into a bomb. The gunsmith dropped her hot rifle and prayed her hybrid body could keep up. She sprinted for the smoke cloud hoping that her body would match the temperature of the air.

An oppressive mixture of steam and carbon dioxide clung to her shifting features. Rally almost felt comfortable for a moment as she ran blindly through the smoke screen. Her talons grew through the holes in her boots once again as she demanded more speed from her body. She ran for the base of a lamp post hoping the concrete planting at it's base would shield her.

Ranma choked and gasped as hybrid blood was forced out of his lungs. The ki blast had taken him completely by surprise. A sickening crunch came from his face as his nose pulled back into place. He extended his senses for a moment. With a massive grunt he threw the largest piece of rubble he could hold, at the biggest life force he could feel.

A roar that was a curious mixture of delight and aggression came from the dust cloud. An azure sphere of life force lit up the clouded battle field. Ranma hurled another broken slab of concrete at the brilliant light. Two more blasts cut through the cloud of smoke and gas. One burning orb of life force clipped his tail as he dodged.

Rally's body temperature dropped to that of the rainy air. The ambulance exploded. The concussive force rippled out ward. The decorative planter Rally hid behind shattered as the blast wave hit it. She could feel her ears rupturing as the massive wave of pressure washed over her. She broke cover once again and drew out her hand gun and sprinted through the smoke towards the alien shuttle. The pain emanating from Nanami and Ranma fueled her determination.

Nanami struggled to remain conscious as pain burned up her leg. Her vision blurred slightly as the tranquilizing poison worked it's way into her blood stream. Had she been human, she had no doubt that the poison on the arrow would have killed. All of her medical knowledge about such things told her that simply pulling out the arrow was a bad idea. The smell of her blood dissolving both the floor and the arrow reminded her she would heal that much quicker once it was out. A hybrid claw sliced off the fletching of the arrow. She grimaced and tried to hold the pain back as she yanked the metal shaft completely through. The redhead turned to the side her vision went dark. She slumped to the ground and began to shiver as the poison meant to addle a fully grown xenomorph took hold of her systems.

Rally dropped low and rolled under the hunter's weapon. She tumbled behind him as he turned. She leveled her sights. The fractions of the second that passed seemed like an eternity to wait for him to turn. Her rock steady hands endured that time. The optical sensors of the Yajuta helmet lined up with her sights and she fired.

The gunsmith didn't even wait for the corpse to hit the ground. She rolled backwards. Rally sprinted towards the alien craft. A panicked yajuta barely reached the hatch controls. She blinked as the hunter slumped into the wall. Alien blood pooled below the creature as it died against the wall.

Bio-electric blasts clashed with azure ki blasts. The hunter closed with his prey. He drew his knife from his boot. This would be the kill. He pushed his fingers through the knuckles of the ancient human weapon. A six inch trench knife attached to a set of brass knuckles. It was an ancient weapon preserved as a revered trophy. The ancient steel was coated to withstand even hard-shell blood.

Ranma closed with the ancient again. Furious speed met undeniable power. Ranma knew as his fist was forced aside that he couldn't win this through speed alone. His body frantically contorted as a double punch rushed at his mid section. The hybrid swayed back trying to escape the pincer move. A single fist slammed into his left lung. A second hit grazed his torso as the hunter shifted. Ranma's hand curled around and a clawed scratched at the hunters neck.

Ranma had never felt this desperate in either life. He could feel Nanami loosing consciousness. He needed an edge. He had to end this quickly. Kodachi's mind brushed against his. Her sultry voice instructed him. "You don't have to play fair dear. It certainly hasn't."

All thoughts of fair play evaporated from his mind. Honor did not matter. Pride withered in the face of desperation. Every alien facet of his biology demanded survival.

The two staggered apart. The Yajuta glared at his prey as his vision blurred. Ranma let out a growl of his own as he coughed up dark acidic blood. He spat at the ancient hunter. The caustic blood burned across the ancients face.

With a primal roar the Yajuta lunged at his attacker. Confidence shifted to pure rage as his world darkened. Ranma drew his burned tail back. The bladed edge whipped around. Every movement of the still healing limb became excruciatingly painful. The toxic stinger cut across the alien's stomach. Ranma cried out as blade cut into his side. Acidic blood spilled from his lungs. Hybrid poison burned in the ancient's veins. The horrid mixture ate away at his flesh. The two staggered apart and fell to the ground.

Rally slowly approached the door to the shuttle. Armed only with a pistol and knife she carefully looked at the corpse of the dead hunter. A long spear thrust into the corpse of the panicked hunter. A synthetic voice called out, "Hold!"

A large Yajuta moved into the doorway of the ship. The massive creature kicked the corpse of the fallen hunter out of the door. The ancient thing pressed several buttons on its wrist. A hissing voice scratched out, "There is no place for cowardice in the clan."

Rally watched as the corpse tumbled out the door several meters. The ancient lumbered forward with a very noticeable limp. The bounty hunter really considered pulling the trigger then and there. A seething anger demanded she kill. A memory, something fuzzy bubbled up into the back of her mind. The Yajuta was not a hunter it was something else. The hissing voice of the Yajuta spoke in halting English, "This ones hunt is over."

She gave only the slightest of nods with her weapon at the ready. The ancient creature shambled out into the battle field. He moved with a slow and sedate pace. The gun smith knew exactly where she was heading. She could feel his pain in the back of her mind. The crumbling mental wall he had put up barely held back the pain of a collapsed lung and the bleeding wounds.

The ancient went to the corpse of the dead ancient hunter. Rally moved to Ranma's side. Two surviving Yajuta appeared silently. They gathered up the corpse of their elder and carried him towards the shuttle. The crippled hunter retrieved the massive claymore. He looked over the damaged weapon for a moment. He tossed the blade and his own spear at the feet of the wounded hybrid then left with the same shambling gate.

Rally looked Ranma over. She pulled the acid proof knife out of his side and slid the blade into the remains of her boot. "Nice distraction."

He looked at her with tired eyes. The humor was lost on the wounded hybrid. "Nanami?"

"Don't know. I can't feel her." Rally looked at him as he pushed himself up into a sitting position.

"Celes is headed this way. I'll be fine." Ranma winced as something crunched inside of his body. His breathing cleared up a bit. "Go find her."

Rally took the spear and left his side and hurried across the street. She found Charles leaning over Nanami with a concerned look on his face. He checked his watch as he kept his finger pressed to her neck. He shook his head. The doctor clearly frustrated with the situation. "I don't know what to do."

"Her heart beating? She still breathing?" She asked already knowing the answers.

Charles nodded. "It's all very faint, very slow."

"I'm not leaving her then." Rally grimaced as she tried to be confident. "Carry her back to the shuttle. We need go."

Rally grabbed her beaten rifle and looked over the abused weapon with disappointment. She watched as the hunters carried their honorable dead back to their ship. A feral portion of her mind wanted to finish them all off. She carefully examined her thoughts. She quarantined the alien aggression in her mind. A calming breath later she found herself mourning the entire situation. Even if they weren't human this fight left a bitter taste in her mouth.

Nanami blinked as she found herself someplace else. The cold air of Mudpie was replaced with a gentle warm breeze with a slightly salty taste. The redhead looked down at her self. She found her appearance perfectly human.

A curious voice asked, "Who are you?"

The redhead turned around. She looked the other girl over. "Nanami Jinnai. Do you know where we are?"

The girl gave a shrug. She looked out over the balcony at the sea. "I think this is a memory. I came here as a child. At least it's similar."

"Nice place." Metal and stone dominated the decor. Textured walls with sky blue tones and whites provided the back drops. Large tiles covered the floor. Nanami quit gawking and asked, "Do you remember your name?"

"Paninya." The dark haired girl looked off into the distance. She whispered, "It hurt."

Nanami looked at the girl with concern. "What hurt?"

"Dying."

"The first time was actually rather painless." Nanami whimsically joked, "Maybe life just got a bit more painful after that."

The dark haired woman blinked in surprise. She cautiously asked, "You think were alive?"

"You were alive when I last saw you." Nanami gave her a sad smile. "I was in a bit of a tight spot."

The unconscious women shared a bit of silence.

Paninya spoke next. Her voice was quiet as if something could overhear them. "If I'm not dead, I've been having dreams. Moments when I am not quite human. I am something else."

Nanami tensed as she realized the woman was struggling with. The alien instincts in her own mind. She admitted to her self she was still struggling with the change in some ways. "You had obsidian skin with a midnight blue tint that matched your eyes. Your curves filled out in all the right places. Your hair had become sensitive to touch?"

"Yes." Uncertainty filled the woman's voice. She looked at Nanami with a measured gaze.

"Lots of sex too. Men, women, making love endlessly in a sea of pleasure?" Her voice took on an almost erotic tone as she described the fantasy. "Warm water surrounds you but you can breath it. You're weightless in the moon lit pool."

Nanami circled around the girl. "He comes at you from behind and you want it so badly. Your tail wraps around his hips and you pull him in close."

Her hand slipped under the airy dress the olive skinned girl wore. Nanami slipped her fingers down into her womanly folds and began to rub.

Paninya shuddered as Nanami placed her hand on her hip and pulled their bodies close. Nanami's nimble fingers made her grow weak. The redhead whispered in her ear, "You can't fight it. You need his seed within you. You want his child so badly it hurts."

The hospital security girl shuddered. Her arousal peaked and she let out a small moan. Nanami's hands went up and down the girl's sides. She rubbed her hips into Paninya's shapely bottom, "Harness it, become it."

Small breathless gasps escaped Paninya's mouth as she climaxed in Nanami's arms. The dominate hybrid smiled as a distinctive black pattern crept up out of Paninya's dress. Hybrid skin spread across the soft curve of her neck.

Nanami licked the the pointed ear tickling a sensitive spot near the apex. Paninya turned around in her lover's arm and began to return the attention she had been given.

"Was it really a good idea putting them both in the same room?" Rally smirked as another soft moan came from behind the privacy curtain. All three knew the two were unconscious but they were definitely sharing something.

Dr. Winchester shook his head. "Well it was either in there or trying to carry her down a ladder."

Kodachi gave them both a smile. "Perhaps she is helping our newest guest come to terms with what has happened."

Charles teased, "Nothing says welcome back to the land of the living like a few hours of sex. Even if it is all in your head."

The gunsmith barely held back her laughter. The Nermian hybrid caressed Rally's side. The hybrid purred out, "It is one reason to live."

Rally rolled her eyes. She stepped away from her amorous pack mate. "Right. Well you guys have fun I have stuff to do."

A weak voice teased from a private room, "Oh come on Rally. She was practically throwing herself at you."

Rally's eye twitched a bit. She could definitely feel it in the air. Part of her wanted to throw Charles and Kodachi into the adjoining room and have her way with them for a few hours. "Shut up May, or I'll take you back to that cot in the medical hangar."

May chuckled a bit then let out a pained groan. The executive mattress in the Beagle was far more comfortable than her previous accommodations. "I'll be good."

Rally gave her a little nod hurried out of the Beagle. Kodachi came into May's room. "Do you need anything?"

"No, I'm good for now." May looked over the beautiful Asian woman. "Thank you for letting me stay here."

Kodachi nodded. Her voice remained quiet as she spoke, "I owe Ms. Vincent much. Circumstances have made her like family. I would do the same for you if you want me to."

May nodded understanding just what the hybrid was talking about. "I will survive. I choose to keep my appearance as it is for personal reasons. From what I've seen, of Winry and Seras, I would age and I wish to avoid that."

She gave the blond a small nod. Kodachi respected her wishes, because there must be a reason she was was willing to endure the pain. "If you need anything else let me know."

May nodded, but she was thoroughly relieved when Kodachi left the room. The young hybrid had an air about her that most companions trained their entire lives to acquire. She was warm, gentle and caring in the most feminine of ways. She was motherly without it detracting from her seductive qualities. Even Rally seemed more seductive in an undefinable way. The offer was tempting it would definitely give her an edge as a companion.

Within the confines of the private quarters Nanami petted her new friend. The two had woken up after several pleasurable encounters. While the dream state felt like the better part of a day the two had only been on-board the Beagle for about an hour. Tender touches ran up and down her side as she kissed her shoulders. The girl moaned in pain and her partner stopped. Nanami pulled back quickly asking, "Whats wrong?"

Paninya pulled at her prosthetic limbs. The young woman cried out, "Get them off!"

The neo-hybrid's body rejected the fact that her legs were not part of her body. Acidic blood slowly dissolved the the connections made to her lower spine. Insulated wires designed to withstand the rigors of the human body began corroding as her new biology adapted. Her new immune system began purging and devouring the foreign objects. Nanami pulled at the two releases just below Paninya's hips. She slid the faux limb out of its connecting adapter. Another loud painful scream came from the girl.

Kodachi pulled open the door. Nanami tossed the second limb away as began to pull at the interface plate that was malfunctioning. Electrical pulses fired into the girls spinal column searching for components dissolved in hybrid blood. The Asian woman looked over the now legless girl and demanded, "Whats going on in here!"

"Her body is rejecting the implants." Nanami pulled a power cell from the girls left stump. She moved to the right side and pulled a second power cell out of the right side.

Paninya let out another pained cry. Tears rolled down her face as she bit her lip. She begged, "Make it stop. Please make it stop."

Nanami gripped the girl's hand as she discarded the last battery she could find. "You're going to be alright."

The young woman squeezed the hand tightly. She forced her eyes shut. The painful shocks to her spine stopped as the last power source was pulled.

"You're body is regrowing your legs." Nanami explained in a cool voice.

Pins and servos attached to the woman's hips melted into an undefinable mass. The heavy metals were stored away in her body for later use. "'Dachi-chan, Paninya is going to need food really soon."

The young woman whimpered a bit as she the unnerving sensation of regrowing a limb began.

Makoto felt his dream shift ever so slightly. The cool breeze of the sea caressed his skin. He surveyed his surroundings and found himself in an unfamiliar place. The Hellenic architecture spoke of class and money. Looking across the vista he thought he recognized the place. Maybe it was New Athens or Pella. He began to wander through the palace looking for details. The dream became a lucid experience as he heard the soft moaning of two women. Curiosity got the better of him and he began to follow the the sound to a bed chamber. Behind a thin veil and ebony skinned creature and a woman were making love completely unaware of his appearance. His eyes focused as he tried to identify them. The ebony skin, the red hair... Makoto's thoughts came to abrupt halt. That creature was the one pretending to be Nanami in his dream.

"Nanami!" He cried out but the two women ignored him. Their sensual acts did not seem to be for his benefit this time. "Nanami?"

"Ms. Jinnai." A soft voice spoke up. The two lovers continued to ignore them as their carnal acts intensified. The redheaded creature was clearly the dominate partner as she guided the human to a climax. "She appears to be unresponsive."

"Ifurta!" Makoto blushed as he looked at the creature he loved. The synthetic woman wore one of her more curious expressions.

"I believe alignment of my Epsilon-Nine secondary aperture and Eight-Delta receiver will improve the transmission." Makoto paused as he pushed lust aside for logic.

"This is a transmission?" He asked as the two females cried out before settling beside each other. The human woman was now clearly in the process of transforming into a creature like Nanami.

Ifurta nodded. "It appears my analysis was incomplete earlier. The intended recipient of this transmission is you. Aligning matrix now."

"Wait." Makoto almost panicked as Ifurta stopped suddenly. "What if it's a trap?"

Her head tilted to the side as she considered the suggestion. "You have displayed appropriate responses to indicate instinctual reaction. One moment."

Ifurta went oddly silent as she retreated into her own mind. Makoto glanced at the two lovers as their tails intertwined. The two creatures began to warm up for a second round. He didn't need to look down to know he indeed had an instinctual reaction going on.

"Analysis complete." Makoto moved closer and wrapped her arms around him. "We have encountered this frequency three thousand eight hundred fifty six times. This form of communication three hundred and fifty seven times. Most notably the creature known as Abe displayed this ability in three hundred and twenty of those times."

Makoto's memories of the odd alien came to a front. "Can you shield me from it?"

"Possibly. While this transmission is in fact directed at you we would need to be in close proximity to completely shield you from it. One moment." Ifurta abruptly disappeared from the dream this time leaving him alone with the two aliens. Several seconds later she reappeared.

"Synchronizing." Ifurta wrapped her arms around him and kissed his lips. She rubbed her thigh against his hardened manhood. His hands roamed up and down the gynoids back for a moment. She let out an a pleasurable coo as he toyed with a node near the small of her back. "Ah... interface successful."

Makoto let his libido take over as he held pushed his knee against hers. Ifurta willingly moved to allow him access to her sex as she began to lick his ear. Her face rubbed against him as she moaned out. She lifted her leg and began to lean into him. Makoto's hips began to thrust as he pushed his manhood up into his lover. Ifurta did her best to please him as she worked. However, she was quickly finding herself becoming stimulated. She began to roll her hips up and down matching the thrusts of his pelvis. "Ah... ahh... ah..." The gynoid began to add her cries to the female voices in the mind scape.

As he began to guide her to a wall Makoto's world abruptly shifted. He found himself fully awake with Ifurta straddling his hips. She began to lift herself up and down, grinding her wet walls against his erection. The two began to match their efforts for maximum pleasure. Ifurta's core temperature began to rise as her breath became shorter. As the two climaxed she curled up into his arms. The synthetic woman whispered. "Protection protocols enabled. Activation of three-theta-omicron sensory processing nodes successful."

Makoto just stroked her hair as he basked in the post coital euphoria. Right now he couldn't careless about anything other than his lover as she curled against him.

"I believe, with proper adjustments I could track the source of this carrier wave." Ifurta shifted as if to sit up.

He pulled back on her gently. "It can wait."

She nuzzled into his shoulder and wrapped her leg over his. "Of course."

Rally turned away from the sound of tapping on her racer's canopy. She curled up into a tighter ball and let out an annoyed mumble. The tapping continued again this time louder. She tried to shut the noise out once more.

Roy frowned as he looked in a Rally. With most of his team out of action or tied up with more pressing matters she was the his best option. The stock of his rifle slammed down onto the transparent canopy. Rally turned her head towards him the noise clearly gotten her attention. He blinked as her golden eyes glared at him for a moment. In another instant her eyes were a clear blue shade once again.

"Do you want me to break your face for scratching my ride?" Rally glared at the security officer.

"Need your help." Roy backed down off the ladder. "Bring your tools we're breaking into a ship."

"What tools?" Rally grumbled as she sat up and stretched. She looked at her watch and bemoaned the fact she had yet again only gotten thirty minutes of rest.

"E hub!" Roy's voice echoed off the walls as he walked out. "In ten!"

Rally met Roy in a hanger on nearly the opposite of the port. She looked over the massive rust bucket squeezed onto the landing pad. "You think it will fly?"

Riza pulled up an info file on the ship. "It's been here for less than a week."

Roy looked over the ship as well. "Well I wouldn't want to break at'mo with it."

The blond sniper nodded. "We just need it to get us to the southern continent. Fourteen thousand kilometers shouldn't be too bad."

Rally pulled her palm top away from the access port linked to the air lock. "I'm in. Access log says last person to get in was over two months ago."

"I wouldn't trust it to log the time of day." Riza caught a whiff of the air that poured out of the ship. Her nose scrunched up. "I take it back, two hours in this heap and the smell might kill somebody. I don't know if I want it to be a legit' fishing vessel or a pirate craft."

Rally suppressed a gag as the smelly air hit her face. She slung her rifle over her shoulder opting to use her more compact hand gun."Fishing ship would probably smell better."

"Great we found the back door." Roy shook his head.

Rally looked up at the water line on the ship. "Yea this is a smuggler hatch. Might not even connect to the main area."

Riza quietly added, "Do we really want to bring the lift down and risk tipping somebody off?"

He stated bluntly, "No, lets try this first. If it doesn't connect we can get a ladder."

The two girls eased into the ship weapons at the ready. Riza peered through her Turcotte's sights as she advanced forward. Turning to the left she grimaced as she looked over a bulkhead door that had been welded shut. "Definitely a pirate ship."

Rally touched the inner wall. The heavy metal did not vibrate like a light inner wall. "Reinforced inner hull."

Roy looked over the display on his computer. He frowned at the layout of the trawler. "Well only one way to go."

"We're probably looking for another air lock." Riza stated as the three moved forward.

Rally chuckled. Her mirthful voice added, "Well there's always the shape charges."

"Blasting the windows would definitely be a bad idea." Roy lowered his weapon as they eased into the the hidden compartment. "We need this heap space worthy."

The hybrid paused as she felt pain coming from a member in her link. She stopped just short of the inner hull door. Her thoughts cast about to find out what was going on. She let out an audible sigh of relief as the two doctors and Kodachi reassured her all was well in hand.

Roy looked over at Rally. He caught the change in posture. Years of following a point-man silently had taught him how to read back-of-the-head expressions. "Whats wrong?"

She managed not to flinch as he asked. She bluffed, "I think I heard something."

Rally's eyes search the compartment. She held up a finger and pointed at a patch of worn paint. Both Roy and Riza noted the disconnect in her actions and her voice. The two voices became very quiet as they planned their move.

"Riza?"

"Can't tell the inner hull is blocking my scanner."

Roy moved to the side of the door. Rally pulled her computer back. Her voice was almost silent. "On three?"

Two nods answered Rally's whisper. Roy pulled the release and Rally's boot clad foot rose up and kicked it open. A deafening crash of metal slamming into metal filled the room. The door shook the frame of the ship with enough force to vibrate the deck plating. She burst into the room with inhuman speed. A shocked man tried to flee as three armed people burst out of the hidden compartment. Rally's eyes swept across the room as she moved away from the door. She caught his wrist as he flailed. With a small turn of the joints in his arm she pinned him to the bulkhead.

I vicious smile crossed Rally's lips as she caught her prey. "Hello Dice."

The brain fried thief sputtered for a moment. "Ah, hey. Rally!"

Roy looked over the bounty hunter and thief. "Well I guess that explains a bit."

"Look officer." The man tried to struggle out of her grasp. "It's not what it looks like."

"Just what does this look like?" Roy asked. Riza checked her scanner again looking for life signs. She moved to an open hatch at the end of the compartment looking for other hostiles.

The man gripped his head and let out a pained groan. "Look man I don't know. I got a lead on some work. I supposed to come here and talk to a guy. Next thing I know I'm two weeks late and nobody is on the ship."

"So you just decided to grab up what ever supplies you could?" Rally felt an irrational anger grip her. This thing had wronged her in some way. "Trying to make a run for it coward?"

"What wait no!" Dice panicked as Rally forced his head into the hard metal wall. He let out a pained cry. The thief's vision blurred with the force of the blow. His consciousness held on by a thread.

"Vincent!" Roy leveled his sights on her. "What the hell is wrong with you!"

Rally blinked as a spicy smell lingered in her nose. Part of her wanted to hate this two bit criminal more than Goldie. Her mind struggled with conflicting instincts. Her rational mind fought back reminding her that he was a just a two bit gun for hire. She fought down the surge of hate and let go of him. The shaky hybrid made a move for the door. Roy kicked the metal hatch shut. Riza kept her weapon trained on Dice while Roy confronted Rally. "I want answers Rally. This isn't you, are you using?"

Her face paled for a moment. It was a perfectly reasonable accusation, she had displayed increased, strength, speed, agility and awareness. Any number of drugs fit the profile. The less attractive symptoms fit as well, primal instincts, loss of perspective, manic bursts of energy, and berserk rage. She wondered, "Was this the price of her survival?"

She knew, what was done to her was a lot more potent than a combat-stim or even high end designer stuff. Her denial was quiet and hollow.

"Then what are you using?" Roy pressed as he considered the situation. "What did those egg heads dope you with?"

Riza circled around the room towards the far hatch.

"Nanami was right I need to sleep." Rally tried to work her way out of the line of questions. She admitted to the lie to avoid telling the truth. "I'm coming off of it."

"Awfully familiar with a stranger. This isn't like you." Roy glared at her. "Vincent if you don't tell me every thing you know, I will end you here and now."

"Oh, god she's one of them!" Dice screamed as he tried to flee. The concussed man began to hallucinate as the concussion and memory wipe drove him to paranoia. Jumbled memories of a failed robbery tumbled around in his mind.

Riza's foot slammed the second door shut. The mechanism clicked into place. He groped at the door frantically. "She ain't human lady! We got to get out of here." The images were remembered then forgotten just as quickly. Panic set in as he forget where he was again.

"Who isn't human?" Riza demanded. She kept her weapon on the desperate man.

Dice gasped for breath. As he started to hyperventilate. "None of you are human."

The man looked at Riza and stumbled back. His hallucination kicked in to high gear. He pleaded with Riza. "Look I didn't mean it man! I'm sorry. Don't eat me."

His eyes locked with Riza as he begged. "Mercy."

"Shut up." Roy shouted at the deranged man.

"Roy, you need to go." Rally starred down the officer. Her will to remain human hung by a thread. The psychic impression of Ranma's anger lingered on the low life. Nanami's fear and the scent of her blood made her boil with anger. She took several calming breaths with her eyes closed.

A feral scream came from the man. He lunged at Riza. The blond brought her hand down sharply. The stock of the SMG came across the junkie's face. The deranged man slumped to the floor unconscious.

Rally backed away from the door she slunk over to the corner of the room. Rally starred at Roy for a moment. He shut the door and gave the lock a twist. "Give me the pistol Rally."

She released the clip form her pistol. She ejected the round from the chamber. Rally placed the weapon on the table. Her rifle came off her shoulder next. She set the weapon down beside the pistol and pushed the two items across the long table towards Riza. "Roy, you should leave."

"We're not leaving you alone." Riza firmly stated with a concerned tone. "Tell us what's wrong."

"I want you, both of you..."

Desperate cry was interrupted by Roy shifting into bad cop mode. "Nobody is leaving here till I get some answers!"

"Roy!" Riza shouted at her boss.

The good cop bad cop act intensified. Roy barked back, "Shut up lieutenant. I don't care what she wants." His angry eyes turned to Rally. He demanded, "Too many things aren't adding up! I want answers now!"

Rally said it without reservation. "I want hours of sex. I want you to take me so badly it hurts. I want you to bend me over that table and fuck me."

"This is a side effect, you can fight it. What did they give you?" Riza encouraged as she slowly moved closer. The woman she knew got more satisfaction out of a machine shop than a man. Her hand rested on Rally's shoulder. "You're coming off of what ever they gave you. We should take you to the medics."

"Leave. I can't." She shook her head and her human form began to slip. "I don't... I've marked you already. I can smell it on you now that I know what to look for."

Riza asked curiously, "What are you talking about?"

"Step back Hawkeye." Roy's intensity increased. "Put your weapons on the table slowly."

Rally began taking off her other weapons. She pushed her tools away. A knife and hold out joined the pistol and rifle on the far end of the table. Fully disarmed she took a breath.

"Keep talking Vincent." Roy kept his eye on the weapon. "I want the whole truth."

"I died out there." Rally focused on past evens in a near trance. "Got May out of the mines but the chest burster got me before I got to the hospital."

Riza nodded as she listened. "Alright. I know I'm not talking to a ghost here."

"Let her tell it." Roy paced a bit but never turned away from Rally.

"Nanami messed up or Kodachi, I'm not sure who marked her." She shook her head. "Celes was at the warehouse I was in. She got stung the night before. Nanami tried to make her forget. She tried to stop it but it didn't work. Once it's in you it doesn't stop."

"What does Celes' have to do with this." Roy eased off the menacing role. He did not want to have to fight her or box her into a corner. "We just want to help."

Rally tried to stop talking and be silent, but she found her control quickly slipping. She skipped ahead. "I woke up different. I chased it down Roy. I snapped it's neck and tore out it's throat."

"What are you talking about?" The dark haired security officer became louder. He followed the good cop bad cop pattern.

"Roy..." Riza put it together in her head first.

"The larva." Rally chuckled darkly as she remembered. "It tasted like lobster."

Riza gasped. "Bug flesh is toxic!"

"I've killed two with my bare hands." She looked up at Riza. Her tiny frame was almost trembling now. "Dice was right, Ranma was right. I'm not human anymore."

Rally took slow breaths and kept her eyes closed. She concentrated on the weakest of the human senses, taste. At first she could only taste her mouth. However, as she focused smell slowly added to the sensation. She could smell Riza and Roy. They both needed a shower, but both smelled healthy and strong. She tied to push the thought away. Every breath added to the picture. A picture that told her Riza and Roy needed to join her little family.

Roy dropped the bad cop role; he knew Rally was calming up. "Look just take it slowly."

Rally kept her eyes and tilted her head down. "Please leave."

Riza gently said, "Let us take you to the medics."

"The hospital is gone. The only thing they could do here is put me in stasis." Rally's voice became hostile as she drew the inevitable conclusion. If she couldn't get them to leave willingly maybe she could scare them of. Her eyes snapped open and she looked him straight in the eye. Her golden eyes shone brightly as she leaned in. "I'm not going to wake up a lab rat."

Wolf like eyes pierced his offense and Roy paused for a moment. As their eyes locked he could feel her aggression. "Alright, alright." Roy lowered his weapon. "Find the bunks. I'll give you seven hours to get your head on straight. Don't even think about leaving this ship."

She nodded in agreement. Sleeping on a bunk here would be better than curling up in the cockpit of her racer for privacy. After a short search they found the captain's quarters. Rally looked over the spartan room. Roy handed her the hold out pistol she took off her ankle. "Sleep, get your head on straight. If you're still acting crazy when I get back we go to the docs."

Rally nodded and reached for the hatch. She wanted to grab him by the collar and drag him into the bed room. "Take a shower. Lock up that idiot."

An hour later Roy looked at Alex and shook his head. He left Riza with a few techs to stand guard over Rally's room as they worked on the ship. What little they had gotten out of their prisoner had been useless. The paranoid rambling of a doper didn't exactly create marching orders. His voice carried a bit of venom. "They doped her and mind screwed him."

"Calm down Roy." Alex took a deep breath. "Is she alright now?"

Roy nodded. His hands fidgeted as he "She's sleeping off what ever they gave her in the trawler."

"Alright, keep it slow." The large Armstrong man considered his options. He knew just how passionate Roy could get about his friends. Several lines had been crossed in the version of the truth Roy told Alex. "He admitted to trying to kill them. A trained psychic can do a lot worse than make a guy forget a few days."

Roy gave his confidant a questioning look. From the picture Maes helped paint he wanted to do nothing more than shoot all three of the corporate low lives on that Firefly. He took a sip of the hot coffee. The bitter beverage did little to drive away the cold wet air.

The large calm man continued. "If they were acting in self defense then killing them was probably the only option."

Roy nodded. "Probably just passing though. Those three just happened to find the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Yes but the drugs, we need to know what they gave her." The large security officer spoke quietly. "Perhaps I should talk to Ms. Rockbell there were whispers that she was shot."

He nodded and starred at his reflection in his black drink. "I'll go talk to this Nanami character."

Alex simply gave him a nod before both men went looking for their marks.

Celes sat down beside Winry. Her roommate was intently focused on her computer. The mechanic let out a whimper of defeat. Her head came to rest on Celes' shoulder. Celes hesitantly wrapped her arm around her. "Whats wrong?"

"I ran out of juice." Winry replied as she turned off the program that was running.

"Um?"

Winry pulled her head back and sat up a bit. "On the speeder. Something tried to steal it so I was going to drive it to the port but its charge died."

"Oh." Celes hadn't even thought of the car since their escape. Some where along the line it became just another tool in the battle. "Um, we can go get it later."

Winry patted her friend on the shoulder. "How about now."

Celes' eyes widened as she realized what was going on. "Are you crazy?"

The blond shrugged. "Rally said the hunters were gone. Nothing but a few crawlies."

"But, but, but." Celes eyes widened. She wondered when Winry became so fearless. "The big bug is still out there and there are so many of them." Winry broke out the puppy dog eyes. Celes responded with open hostility, "The entire colony is over run with bugs! I am not going looking for our stupid car!"

"That would be a wise idea Ms. Victoria." A refined voice approached from behind. Mr. Armstrong seemed in good spirits. "I'm sure your car will be perfectly fine until the storm passes."

The young blond quickly responded. "But somebody tried to steal it!"

Alex paused and considered the options. If someone was actually driving the beaten speeder it meant there could be a survivor. "Winry, where is your car now?"

Winry looked up with a bit of hope in her eyes, Mr. Armstrong seemed very interested in her baby. "Just off Main, two blocks from from the access road to the port."

"Perhaps we can schedule a fly-over." The bald man shifted the conversation a bit. "Ladies, I need to ask you some questions about the last few days."

The two blond's exchanged glances. Mr. Armstrong looked at the girls. His deep voice gently stated, "Girls I just want to make sure you are alright."

"We're fine." Winry answered for the pair. She looked at him with questioning eyes. Celes paused unsure if she wanted to just lie.

Mr. Armstrong looked Winry in the eyes. "I spoke to Rally. She told me about the travelers." His wide gaze moved Celes. "She told me about what happened."

The two girls tensed up as they looked at the large man. Winry firmly replied. "We're fine Mr. Armstrong."

"Rally wasn't doing so good." The large man bald man gave the girls a harsh look. "We need to know what they gave her," his gaze lingered on Celes as he added, "and you."

Celes quickly and adamantly lied, "They didn't give us anything."

"Really?" Mr. Armstrong held out two credit sized cards. With one in each hand he offered the portable labs to the girls. "We're all adults here. You girls know how they work."

Winry swallowed hard as she took the micro lab. The disposable devices could be used to detect any number of diseases, pregnancy, infections, monitor blood sugar and about five hundred other tests. Winry shook her head. "It saved her life. If we didn't give it to Rally she would have died."

Celes silently shrunk back into the corner. She didn't want to be a monster. Ever since her parents died she longed to be just another normal girl. Winry's voice got louder as she stood up for both of them. "Just leave us alone. We didn't do anything wrong."

Alex skillfully moved the conversation against Winry. "True but why did they need to save your life."

"We got mugged in the market!" Winry shot back at the older man. "A few thugs thought Kodachi was an easy mark. They shot me!"

He frowned as she offered up only the truth and no details as to how they saved her. "Even the best nano-tanks take a few days to patch up a gunshot wound."

"She had something better." Winry looked at Celes. Alex did not miss the glance and turned his attention to the other girl. "What about you. Are you clean."

"I'm fine." Celes looked at her best friend with a hopeless expression.

The click of the door signaled a new face in the conversation. An aristocratic voice soothed the girl as she quickly moved across the room. "Ms. Victoria must be exhausted. The poor thing has been fighting so hard. I was surprised a girl so young could handle her self so well against those monstrosities."

Celes flinched as Kodachi moved to comfort her in a motherly fashion. The dark haired aristocrat seemed almost shocked as the girl recoiled away. "All of you just leave me alone."

She moved away from the others as quick as she could. Winry winced as she felt Celes' pain leak through the air. Confusion, anger, resentment and isolation all brushed past her before she felt the link forcibly shut down. Winry realized her mistake quickly. Celes had come looking for her best friend and she was too busy playing with her car to notice her. "I gotta go."

Kodachi watched as Winry hurried after her friend. The security officer bit back a curse. She frowned as she planned her next move. The girls needed her there and the last thing those two needed right now was security chasing them down for answers. She did the only thing she could. "I believe you have questions for me officer."

Alex looked at the woman as she sat down at the table. She had caught him flat footed. He stumbled on his words. "I'm not sure..."

"You cornered the two girls with drug tests." She looked him straight in the eye. "Ms. Jinnai was disoriented by the presence of the hive. There was an accident in my ship. She was disoriented when Seras awoke her prematurely."

The solider cocked his head to the side as he tried to decipher the woman's statement. Her odd accent and choice of words. He slowed down and thought carefully about the next words to come out of his mouth. "I see... Just what happened to Seras?"

"She is like me now as is Winry. However, those hoodlums would have most assuredly killed her if not for my intervention." Kodachi gestured to the crate she was sitting on. Alex instead moved for another box that sat a few meters away. "If it were a temporary thing I would undo it but the formula is most permanent and potent."

"Just what are you talking about?" Alex seemed completely lost as Kodachi drowned him in information without giving him all of the facts.

"The effects will persist. They will be smarter, stronger and healthier than before. However, we are more sensitive to psychic things and if we are not careful we can be overwhelmed by our instincts. They will need guidance." She put on a face that almost seemed remorseful. "A bit of our humanity is lost for these things but as Nanami says, 'being human is in the choices we make.' I hope you do not do an inhuman thing to those girls."

His curiosity got the better of him. "Just what are you."

"A friend." Kodachi smiled as she stood up. She hoped that she had confused him just enough to send him back to his masters with an incomplete picture. "We could have left days ago if we did not care about the people on this world."

She clicked the door shut as she left. Kodachi hoped she had given the girls enough of a head start.

Sleep was not a simple thing for Rally Vincent. Her encounters with Golide Musou had left her with several undocumented mental and physical conditions. Mingled with her father's genetics as an enhanced solider she had a complicated profile. Her attention to detail almost border lined on obsessive compulsive some days. She also frequently displayed the hyper-awareness and sleep disorders associated with post-traumatic stress. To sleep comfortably any where Rally had developed certain rituals to keep these things in check. A gun under the pillow was important, but meditation was one of the first steps she took every night to sleep. Rally stripped down and sat atop the captain's bed. With her eyes closed she focused on her self. She slowly shut out the outside world. Normally she could pick an innocuous thing and slowly add details however, the ten degrees of separation was throwing her mind off. Colors became objects that became shapes that turned into people. Rally found she was loosing her self in the flood of fantasy.

She opened her eyes and looked around the modest cabin. She could smell it was a man's room; his odor dominated it. Traces of more than a few women came from the mattress. Rally scrunched up her nose. "Great, I didn't need that image in my head."

Rally looked at the mirror and knew she had to start another way. The first step in mental discipline was a strong sense of self. You had to know every bit of your mind and body. To defend her self from he enemies she had to embrace even her flaws. Most importantly she had to learn to love herself. She looked at her self quietly praising her features. Her cotton bra and panties contrasted horribly with her skin. The gray color did not look good on her at all. The gunsmith shook her head. This wasn't her anymore. She was praising an illusion. Even if it was an ideal version of her body just a few days ago.

She pulled off the sports bra and panties. Rally concentrated on her other self, her true self. Her bronze skin slowly darkened. Her finger nails hardened into small dense claws. Her breasts were lifted gently as her exoskeleton grew into place. The natural bustier gave her the slight bit of cleavage even while nude. She caressed her arms feeling the slightly armored upper arms. Her hands wandered down her side as she explored her alien form. She could feel her abs, strong feminine muscles covered her lower torso. She lifted her leg up then pulled it back. She touched her foot to her shoulder blade with only the smallest bit of pull from her hand. With a mischievous grin she stretched her let into a vertical splits. Her impromptu yoga session continued as she leaned down. She touched her forehead to her shin.

She had never been so lithe. Her forearms rested on the ground and she pushed her leg into the air. Her long tail gave her exceptional balance as she worked her way into a hand stand. She let out a giggle as her feet touched the ceiling. It had been a long time since she was alone in her room pretending to be a gymnast. She rolled out of the stand. Her tail curled around her waist as she sat on the floor with her legs crossed. She wondered just how far she could push it. She tilted her head up and looked at the ceiling. She spied an exposed bulk head that she could get a food hold on. The amused hybrid rolled back into a hand stand She walked on her hands with the grace of a trained acrobat.

Her foot hooked into the small crevice. She pulled her self up to the ceiling slowly. The action had become the mediation for her. She took her time moving at a fraction of the pace she could. Rally hung from the ceiling for a moment basking her her new abilities. Every contraction and twist of all of her muscle groups was an affirmation of self. She knew she was better than some of the best now. A whole new level had been opened up to her, and she was going to take advantage of it.

Rally's hands gripped the cold steel bar. She could feel the dust and chipping paint under her fingers. The hybrid felt a faint vibration of the ship. Her mind slowly put together the vibrations of the ship and compared them with the memories of the compartments. Her hyper active brain quickly pieced together a sonic map of the ship and the movement within it. Within in moments she knew some one was almost out side the door. Rally hurried across the ceiling and hid just behind where the hatch would open.

A knock came at the door. "Rally are you awake?"

The gunsmith remained silent hoping that Riza would let her sleep.

"Rally!" Another tap on the door came followed by a moment of silence. The door clicked open. Riza let her self into the room and found the lights on. She knew Rally was a bit of an odd sleeper but the bed was empty. Riza stepped into the room her pupils dilated as she caught the scent of something interesting.

The sultry voice behind her took her buy surprise. "Something wrong Riza?"

"No I just..." Riza turned around to find Rally fully nude and completely hybrid.

Riza found her self completely off balance as she caught another breath of that musky sweet smell. Rally closed the distance between her and Riza. Her tail pushed the heavy door shut. "Not quite what you expected to find."

"What did they do to you?" Riza's eyes moved up and down Rally's new form. Her hand went to her side arm as she took a step back.

"I don't know." Rally confidently admitted as she gave Riza a smile. "A bit of mad science gone a muck. It definitely has it's advantages."

"But you're not..." Riza gasped as Rally's form melted back into her human guise. "You're you..."

"I wasn't lying earlier." Rally moved inside of Riza's personal space. "I want both of you. We're going to settle this little thing between you and Roy."

Riza blushed as all thoughts of resisting seemed to melt away. The alien pheromones addled her senses. "I..."

"It's alright. I just want to talk." Rally stepped past her and sat down on the bed. She pulled the bed sheet around her body.

Riza watched Rally carefully. She had heard the rumors about the other travelers more importantly she was well acquainted with Vincent's skills. "Now really isn't the time to be talking about my love life."

"On the contrary." Rally gave her very direct reply. "If we don't do something Roy will probably get himself killed."

Questions raced through Riza's mind. Was this really Rally? What if it wasn't? Could she stop this creature if it came to that?What did it want? "I'll protect him."

The hybrid smiled at Riza.

Rally leaned in and kissed her. "You will."

Nanami's nostrils flared as she caught the scent of something sweet in the air. She took a deep breath to draw in more of the odor. Her enhanced senses quickly dissected the pheromone tag. Without even realizing it she was reading her self to seduce who ever was coming around the corner. Her hand went through her hair. She adjusted her head band and popped open the top button of the blouse she changed into. A small smile crept across the redhead's face as she turned around.

"Ms. Jinnani." Roy's voice asked through the closed privacy wall of her cabin.

Nanami smiled as she noted her bed was empty. Paninya was comfortably and privately resting in one of the forward cabins. She checked her self in the mirror. Then gasped as she realized what she was doing. She berated herself asking, 'What kind of slut had she become?' Her hands quickly put her buttons back into place. "One moment."

Roy schooled his features into a concerned frown. "I need to talk to you about Ms. Vincent."

Nanami stepped out of her quarters. "What's the problem officer."

Roy glared a the traveler. "My friend is coming down off of what ever you doped her with!"

"She was supposed to be sleeping!" She returned his hostility directly. "For your information if we didn't treat her injuries, she would have bled out in some muddy gutter." His jaw snapped shut. Nanami starred him down. "We have been fighting tooth and nail since this started. My boyfriend got the hell beaten out of him by some alien, I got thrown off a roof by a bug. Now what did you do to Rally."

Roy took a half step back as her demeanor shifted. Nanami's eyes became golden as her anger peaked. "You've taken it too."

"New quirks aside, this is infinitely preferable to the alternative." She stated her demand again. "Where is Rally?"

"Why do you need to know?" Roy found himself on the defensive.

Nanami cast out her senses and mentally searched for her wayward pack mate. Nanami let out a curse as she drug him out of the room.

"Wha..."

Nanami cursed as she realized what was happening. "Of all the stupid, irresponsible, stupid." The hybrid let out a low growl as she drug. Her thoughts centered on Rally. Nanami found fellow hybrid was apparently in a comfortable state. "She did this on purpose."

Roy stumbled behind the surprisingly strong woman. "She wasn't doing much on purpose when we last spoke."

"Look I know I slipped up, but sending you here like this was just mean!" Nanami thrust Roy into the shower at the end of the hall. "Strip!"

"I'm flattered but no!" Roy's hand grabbed the edge of the door.

Nanami locked eyes with him as she forced him into the bathroom. "You've been marked with a pheromone tag. Now unless you want me to remove your clothes for you. I suggest you take your shower like a big boy."

"What what." Roy stumbled back as Nanami shut the door. "Rally said she marked me and Riza."

Nanami slumped against the door as she shut her eyes. "Look... Just shower and gimme your clothes so I can wash them."

Roy shook the door. "What's going on."

"Clothes now!" Nanami let the door open slightly. "Or I'm going to come in there and get naked with you."

A hat and tactical vest followed by body armor slid out the slightly open door. Roy's thigh holster and radio slid out. "Just what is going on lady."

"We were treated with an experimental DNA fusion." Nanami grabbed the empty holster. "Wash the gun too. Hot water. The treatment was essentially a super solider compound."

"Why was Rally freaking out?" He checked his weapon and considered firing through the door. Instead he slid the clip out of the weapon and released the chambered round. He pushed the round back into the clip. Roy unclasped his boots and put them by the door. "How did she mark me."

"She's rebuilding her brain structures, building new ones. It's not a stable or pleasant process. I spent three days in hyper sleep." Nanami pulled his pants and boots through the door. "I'll spare you the details but we aren't completely human anymore. We can communicate through pheromones."

Roy's undershirt, boxers and socks came out next. "I've met a lot of synthetics, cyborgs and aliens, but I've never heard of something like this."

"We are the result of perhaps one of the best black box labs in the universe." Nanami pulled the last bits of clothing into a bundle. She opened the door a bit wider and pulled his boots through. "Hot water, ten minutes plenty of soap. I'll be back."

Roy grimaced as the door clicked shut. He turned the shower on and stepped into the water. As the warm water cleansed two days of battle of his skin he began to relax. He slowly rationalized that taking a shower wasn't the strangest thing he had to deal with in the last few days.

Kodachi smiled as she heard the sound of the shower running near her quarters. "Ranma-kun, you shouldn't be out of bed."

She pealed off her clothing hoping to surprise her lover. She opened the door and a cloud of hot steam billowed out of the doorway. A sweet scent mingled with hot steam drifted into her nose. "Just leave it on the sink."

The hybrid smiled as she stepped into the hot shower. The high humidity and heat caused her to shift into her natural form.

Roy paused as he realized the person in the outer room wasn't leaving. Through the steam he could see an entirely black female form. "Ms. Jinnai."

Kodachi paused as she stood naked out side of the shower door. She could smell Rally's pheromones in the air. "Mhmm... are you Ms. Vincent's guest?"

"Ah..." Roy looked at the ebony skinned woman. Her deadlocked hair falling across her shoulders and down her back.

"She certainly has good taste." Nanami opened the door as Kodachi stepped back.

The naked hybrid gave her a smile. "Kodachi!?"

"He is a wonderful choice!" Kodachi gave the woman a smile and wink. "While Ranma-kun is a superior specimen in my eyes as a small population we must genetically diversify to avoid the detrimental effects our children. I wish to avoid the mistakes of my progenitors."

Nanami palmed her face. "Which book are you reading now?"

" _Comparative_ _Population Genetics_ by Dr. Argus Divia." Kodachi stepped aside as she started moving out of the bathroom.

"I'm sure we'll have our own breeds of crazy to deal with." Nanami ushered the naked hybrid out of the bathroom. "Stay out of the graduate level texts for now."

She wiggled out of the room. "Alright. I think I'll start over with a bit of botany."

After the door clicked shut. Roy looked at Nanami. "So, she's like you?"

The redhead shut her eyes and pinched her nose. "Yes."

"And Rally?"

She put his clothes down on the sink. "Yes."

"Right. So no unreasonable need to jump my bones?" Roy asked as he pulled a towel across his body.

Nanami blushed as she looked over his well toned body. "No, but I think it will pass once you put some clothes on."

"Right."

The biologist quickly stepped outside of the bathroom shutting the door behind her. "Look."

"I get it." Roy stepped out mostly dressed. He finished cinching his belt. "Super drug has a few side effects, but it saves lives."

"Thanks."

Roy changed the topic. He pulled on his body armor, boots and vest. "So your crew are they alright?"

The two moved towards the center of the ship. "Yea, I took an arrow in the leg. Ranma got beat up he's sleeping off the exhaustion. Rally needed some rest."

"He took on a hunter and only got beaten up?" Roy's analytical brain began to kick in.

Nanami let her guard slip a bit in the presence of a charming man. "Rally had the higher kill count but Ranma took out the big one."

"He went hand to hand with an elder?" Roy asked almost "Just how many doses of this stuff do you have left?"

"Enough to make some very powerful people very upset." The two ended up in silence. They sat down at the table. Nanami offered Roy a piece of fruit. "It takes about 75,000 calories to survive the transformation."

"That's over a week's worth of rations." Roy looked at the green fruit. "A lot of food."

Nanami sat down across from him. "A lot of food we don't have."

Roy chuckled as he remembered one "What about lobster?"

"You have got to be kidding." Nanami shook her head. "I could arrange for you to test that theory."

He looked at her with a small smile. "Why do I get the feeling that was what you were trying to protect me from earlier."

"I didn't want to do it. Not like that." She looked away. "Each time I give into my instincts it feels like I slip up a bit further away."

"I've seen it before with synth-ops teams. When they cut out those useless parts of the they cut out something that makes them human." Roy pealed back the skin of the fist sized grape. "It's usually why they have handlers."

Nanami nodded. "So where did you fall in the CMC?"

"Colonel Roy Mustang." Roy frowned as Nanami drudged up some memories. "Most of the remaining security was under my command."

"What happened?" She asked as she ate her own 'grape'.

Roy looked at her for a moment. He let the silence linger. "I found something I shouldn't have. I saved a city I should have burned. Somebody a lot higher up the food chain was pulling the strings. Did what I could to save my crew, my ship and the city. Somebody want everything buried. They wanted to hide something on that rock. A stealth ship dropped in glassed two cities and jumped out."

"Wow." Nanami leaned back as she digested his abbreviated story. "Fuck..."

The former colonel raised an eye brow. "Yea..."

"This was so much easier before we started with the conversation and foreplay." Nanami put her head on the table.

He gave her a cocky smile. "I thought you were going to ask me to be your handler."

"Me, you, Rally, Kodachi." Nanami watch as a little bit of blood drained from Roy's face. "Could be interesting."

"Like a circus." Roy sat up. "Look I'm going to check in on Rally and Riza make sure that ship is online. We need to get these people moving to the old marine base. Not to mention getting Riza take a shower."

"I'll come with you," Nanami commented, the instinctive passion rolling off of Rally's mind was palpable, but it was kind of odd.

Too much satisfaction for handling herself, but the psychic element was muted. So it wasn't one of them, but that didn't make sense for other reasons. Or then again, maybe it was just her recent psychic make-out session.

And she was thinking of Makoto again. Next maybe she'd just settle for another dream-session with Shayla-Shayla instead of imagining giving her old flame a live-peep show.

She wondered idly where Shayla. It would be nice to have a real session with the girl instead of something imagined.

"I have a thing or two to tell Rally myself," she noted, standing up into a stretch.

Roy weighed the pros and cons of allowing that. On the one hand, he'd get more of a chance to talk to the woman. On the other hand, that put two of these...enhanced people with him and Riza.

"Fine, keep where I can see you," he consented finally.

"That's fine," Nanami said, shaking her head clear.

"Something wrong?" Roy asked.

"Eh, forbidden fruit fantasies," Nanami said with a shrug. "Twice over...maybe three times." She glanced up toward Roy. "Or four times."

"So, let me get this straight," Roy said. "From what I understand, you're already actively involved with at least two people, maybe more and you're wanting others."

"Leave me alone, all right?" Nanami pleaded. "Humans are already randy creatures and I've got extra piled on top of that."

"Whatever," he said. "Let's just get on with this. Ladies first."

Riza gasped and arched her back as slick warm fingers traced over the burn scar on her back, talons tracing shallow cuts that even humans could heal within minutes. She crushed her hips into Rally's and let the hybrid lick at her neck.

Ten minutes ago, she'd started coming to her senses. About two minutes ago, she was willing to admit that any sort of chemical encouragement had been pretty cleared from her body and what was going on now was entirely her, or at least almost so.

She leaned forward and nibbled at Rally's ear and marveled at the girl's slick and supple skin. It had a wonderful feel against her own skin, cool to the touch, but warm with life as it lingered. A very unique feeling that she was still relishing.

More so since she was experiencing it clearly right now.

Reflexively, she pulled Rally in and bit into the hybrid's shoulder. It was an instinct, as much a part of the human to want to taste their lover as it was anything else. In this case, it was a shocking acidic taste harsh enough almost made her gag in surprise.

"What is it?" Rally asked huskily.

"Nothing," Riza said, gasping as recovered before moving her hands around to caress Rally's full breasts, marveling again at how yielding the shiny, rubber-like skin was, just like human skin in how pliable it was.

Rally moaned in response twisting back and letting Riza bend down over her and take charge of the situation. The sounds the gunsmith was making reminded the soldier very much of the way the bugs often did, but not completely.

Experimentally and cautiously, she bent down again and nibbled at the tips of Rally's bronzed nipples. The acidic taste was still there, and it was bitter, but not unbearably so. Definitely something of an acquired taste. She started to knead the breasts grinding herself into Rally's knee.

Maybe she should try another nibble.

Roy frowned as Riza failed to open up the ship at his first call.

"Lt Hawkeye," he called out again into his radio. "I'm outside the ship, open it up please."

Nanami sat outside looking confused and a little hot and bothered. The activity from Rally had died down, but the calm way things were now made her confused. There was no feel of bugs anywhere nearby or feeling of danger from her "granddaughter", as Rally liked to tease her. But if that was the case, why was no one answering the door.

And Rally was asleep so she couldn't really answer.

"Maybe..."

"You stay right there," Roy said sharply to Nanami, one hand resting on a gun as he eyed the redhead.

He frowned and glanced at the keypads before starting to unlock it from the outside again.

"I could do that," Nanami offered.

"I've got it," he told her.

"Really, you don't have to worry about me," Nanami said. "I'm sure...I hope everything is fine."

The loading ramp came down crisply and Roy gestured with his gun for her to walk up onto the ship. Shrugging with a sigh, Nanami stepped up into the ship, ignoring the commentary she heard from Kodachi and Ranma on the situation.

"Lt. Hawkeye," Roy called out as they moved into the ship, and noted that everything was lit up and operating. "Riza! Answer and report."

"Are you both all right?" Nanami added for her own part, despite knowing for a certainty that Rally was safe and healthy.

He turned to glare at Nanami.

"I can be worried too," she protested. "And don't you trust Rally? You've known her longer than I have."

"Like you said, she's changing," Roy reminded her. "And if because of that, she's..."

"Okay, this uniform is not going to be the same again," Riza muttered as she walked out into the middle of the room holding the shreds of her shirt and pants while dressed only in the jacket.

Then she noticed Nanami and Roy standing there and froze.

"Uh...sir, I didn't hear you come in," she said in embarrassment.

"Lt. Hawkeye," Roy intoned with care and deliberation, "do you mind...explaining the situation."

"Well...I was...giving Rally a..." she paused with a blush over her face, "well...she's very...healthy, sir."

Roy let his pistol drop and raised a palm to his face as Nanami pointed at her with a blink and open mouth.

"You're...still human," Nanami said. "And you...did...that?"

"Is that a problem?" Roy asked quickly.

"I...don't know," Nanami said.

Actually she was surprised, even if Rally had chosen not to turn Riza with the tail, that her body hadn't adapted some other delivery method. Something like a bite, or saliva, or, heck, even lactation. Anyway to get the combination of mutation agents into Riza's system.

After all, a big part of their instinct was to reproduce one way or another.

"And how is Rally?" Roy asked.

"Sleeping it off," Riza said, still a bit embarrassed and trying to maintain military dignity in her post sexual afterglow.

Celes ran from the room. Tears worked their way down her cheeks as she ran through the halls. She never wanted to be the blond terror, little miss temper or the green eyed monster. All she ever wanted to be was kitten, a little girl that had two loving parents. She was a monster now and she hated it. Winry was loving it, Rally was making friends and she just wanted to cry. Celes ran to the one person that would listen.

Izumi felt a hand grab her wrist. She turned to see Celes with tears running down her eyes. "Mom can we talk."

"Alright kitten." Izumi wrapped her arm around her daughter and led her out of the crowded hanger. The two walked as her tears continued to flow. In a control room above another hanger. The two sat down on a cot in the dark while Izumi let her daughter cry. She did not ask any questions or even make a sound.

"I don't want to be a monster mom." Celes sat up and cleared her eyes. "I don't want a new mom. I want you."

"Shhh..." Izumi stroked her daughter's hair. "I'm not going anywhere. What's this about."

Izumi's hunch that this was about a friend being killed slipped away. Over the next ten minutes Celes slowly told her experiences over the last few days. The girl shifted in and out of her hybrid form before remaining in her new body for her mother. Izumi took it slowly closing her eyes and taking deep breaths. She subdued her legendary temper and gave her daughter all the support she could.

"It's alright kitten." Izumi hugged her hybrid daughter as they sat beside each other. "We aren't going anywhere."

"But, I'm all." Celes gestured to her body.

"I have friends. We know how to hide." Izumi laughed a little as she tried to calm her daughter. "Let me tell you a little story about a group called the Civil Liberation Front."

Celes looked up at her mother questioningly. It wasn't what she expected to hear. Izumi unbuttoned her shirt and pulled down the back. She pulled her dread locks over her shoulder. "Take a look."

The blond pushed the last remaining locks aside and saw an intricate set of bar codes and some kind of relay buried beneath her skin. She traced the scars beneath the ink and tech. The harsh jagged lines made it look very painful. A small metal plate rested just below the skin near her spine. "What is it?"

"Neural interface for a targeting computer." Izumi let her daughter's fingers linger on her back.

The blond got very quiet at the information. "That isn't..."

"No, it isn't." Her daughter let go of her shirt and looked her in the face. "It's second hand." Celes sat in silence for a moment as she considered everything. The only way you got a second hand neural interface was taking it out of the previous owner. Izumi kept talking. "After I found out what they did to me I was a very angry young woman. The government was trying to control the population growth but they were also lying about how they were doing it. The system on New Liberty was very corrupt."

Celes put her hand over her mouth as she realized her mother was a terrorist.

"A group of us decided that we would engage in our own form of population control." Izumi shrunk back as she realized her daughter's reaction. "I killed six senators, three board members, the CEO and their families."

The young woman sat quietly for what seemed like an eternity to Izumi. "What did they do to you."

"They sterilized us. They killed my son." Izumi rung her hands as she confessed. "I conceived my child off world before we migrated. We didn't know the food was laced with inhibitors. I miscarried twenty seven weeks in. I wasn't even supposed to be pregnant. We saw their doctor weeks before the trip. I came out of hyper sleep and..." Izumi's composure broke as she couldn't bear to repeat the details of her ordeal. "When the chance came to hit those bastards, I took it. I helped spark that civil war. I just wanted to create a life but I ended up taking so many. I was a monster for so long I forgot how to be human."

Celes asked the most important question to her. "How did you stop?"

"My last kill was a CMC colonel. He was the lynchpin of his command. Without him entire divisions would have been rendered useless. The job went bad I got a lot of friends killed that day, but we killed him. We won and lost. I spent six months in a hospital with a broken leg and pelvis. I nearly got Sig killed that day. Then they started with the bombings. When the CLF blew up a passenger train I knew we lost something." Izumi took her daughter's hand and spoke quietly. "I didn't just stop. Every day you wake up and choose good. Once I could walk Sig and stole a ship and we left."

Celes whispered something Izumi never expected. "I could fix you..."

"What are you talking about kitten?" Izumi rubbed her hand across her daughter's back.

She quietly whispered. "If I stung you, you wouldn't be sterile."

It wasn't hard for her to put two and two together. Izumi knew her daughter needed an affirmation. She also knew it wasn't a choice to be made lightly. "I don't know what to say."

"We'd be real family." Celes gave her a small smile. "We'd definitely share a few chromosomes according to Nanami."

"You will always be my daughter. I don't need a few molecules to love you." Izumi gave her daughter a wink. "If your asking for a baby brother or sister, I'll admit I'm tempted."

Celes tail curled up and around. Izumi watched with muted horror as the tail shifted and changed in front of her. The almost surgical blade began to drip with the mutagen. "One little cut is all it will take. It won't even hurt."

"I'm here for you no matter what. If this is what you want, what you need. I'll do this." Izumi looked at her daughter carefully. She nodded ever so slightly. She searched her eyes for her daughter's soul. Izumi took a breath then wrapped her hand around the serrated tail. Red human blood dripped down Celes tail. Izumi wrapped her arm around her daughter. She gave her daughter a brief hug. Her hand let go of her daughter's tail. Izumi looked at the wound as it knitted together. Instead of red blood and torn flesh she found a smooth black scar. Izumi blinked as she looked at her hand. "I'm not even bleeding."

"Lie down." Celes moved aside she guided her mother into a relaxed position.

Izumi held up her arm as she felt something creeping down her arm. "How long does it take?"

"About a day." Celes shifted a bit. Her body shifting to her human form. "I'll get you some food. You'll need it."

Her mother nodded as she felt a tingle move from her shoulder to her spine. Izumi nodded as she felt herself falling asleep.

"Celes..." Winry touched her best friend and sister on the shoulder. "I didn't... I just."

"She isn't family Winry." Celes carefully composed herself.

Winry nodded as she let her sister vent.

Celes hand curled into a fist as she shook a bit. "If this is the only good bit that comes out of this, out of me, I can live with that."

"Celes, I'm sorry." Winry's blue eyes pleaded with her sister.

The blond shook her head a bit. "She crossed a line."

"I asked her to help!" Winry blurted out angrily. "Who was going to help us. Mom and Dad didn't know, Rally is passed out, May is beat to hell. Nanami? The doc?"

"We had it under control!" Celes shot back.

The two girls felt the solid impact of two manuals to the back of their heads. A small smirk crossed Izumi's lips as she looked at the two. "Deep breaths. Think twice talk once."

Winry and Celes looked at their surrogate mother as she sat up slightly. "Sorry."

"Good girls." Izumi let out a little chuckle. "This is so much better than a case of sake."

Winry looked at Celes. "Oh, no."

Izumi closed her eyes and started to hum. The two girls back away slowly. They hadn't forgotten the last time she had started singing to them. Lessons on personal responsibility and respecting Sig's credits even if there was a sale hunted them to this day. They quickly positioned themselves to make a break for the door. As the door clattered shut Izumi smiled. She knew her girls would work it out. They just need to breath a bit. She would deal with a certain interloping tramp once the ceiling wasn't purple and yellow with shades of three.

In the hall Celes grabbed Winry's wrist. "Look I'm sorry about earlier."

"It's aright. I wasn't paying attention." Winry plastered on a smile as she let it go. If she had to be the bad guy she'd be the bad guy. "For the record, I didn't think Kodachi was gonna do that..."

Celes mood lightened. "I think we have a crazy aunt now."

Winry shook her head. "Crap we do. Wait does that make Rally the sane one now?"

"Older sister from mom's first marriage?" The two headed through the port slowly re-bonding.

Winry giggled a bit before asking, "So just who is her father."

Celes smiled as they expanded the fantasy. "She's the love child of a... of a very expensive companion."

"Lt. Hawkeye," Roy said, voice dripping with embarrassment. "Please...find some clothes and get right back here."

"Right, sir," she responded hesitantly. "I think there are some coveralls in one of the bunks."

"Then get one of them," Roy insisted.

"On my way, sir," Riza said with a salute that took one hand away from holding her jacket closed and giving both Roy and Nanami a flash of her body from the waist down.

With a quick step, she moved back into one of the corridors out of sight, face flushed brightly as she tried to forget the situation as much as possible. Having a quick fling was one thing, doing it in a way where chance of discovery was very high was entirely another.

And then forgetting about the danger.

Not to mention that it was Roy, of all people, who'd seen her after the fact. She was going to have die a couple of thousand times later on when he had a chance to scold her alone. Of course, Nanami following her progress out of the room didn't help her concentration.

"Miss Jinnai," Roy snapped, whipping about to face Nanami and pointing toward a bulkhead. "Take a seat. I want a more specific description of what you are and where you came from."

"I'd need some time to..."

"A summary without the left out parts," Roy snapped.

"It's not really a simple matter," Nanami protested angrily.

"Make it one," Roy said. "This isn't a matter of a 'super-soldier' serum. I can tell by your surprise, this isn't something kept in vials in a protected case. Explain matters clearly, because we have enough problems right now without more unseen dangers on top of that."

Nanami thought briefly, checking the party line both to see if anyone was thinking about coming to her rescue and conferring with the others. She was surprised at feeling a new presence in the overall population, but introductions would have to come later.

Ranma was nearby, probably had started moving into position when Nanami first got nervous. But he was waiting, pretty much for the same reason as what Roy had said. They didn't need an entirely new front to the warzone they had just at the moment.

And keeping secrets was probably going to lead to a split that would not be beneficial in either the long or short run.

"Well?" Roy asked as Riza came back into the room.

"Byproducts," Nanami said with a sigh. "Unintentional results."

"This is still being vague," the colonel noted.

"You know about the Auriga incident," Nanami asked.

"The crash killed billions of people and made evacuation of several parts of earth necessary until the clean up was finished," Roy confirmed. "What does that have to do with you."

"They were experimenting with bugs," Nanami said. "They'd cloned a queen-host to resurrect the species for study."

"They could have waited a few years for the hunters to do it," Riza commented irritably.

"I still don't see the connection," Roy noted.

"The cloned host survived, with additions," the bio-scientist explained. "She's currently a known mercenary and pirate by the name of Ripley."

"Kodachi and Ranma are similar clones then?" Riza asked. "With 'additions.' I thought Rally sounded a bit like a bug when she..."

She flushed and looked to Roy as the man took a deep steadying breath.

"You're part xenomorph," Roy said coolly. "Give me a moment, but last I heard, genetherapy wasn't something that could be applied overnight."

"It's not just xenomorphs," Nanami said reluctantly.

"What else is there?" Mustang demanded in bullet rhythm.

"Project SIL," the scientist listed.

"Summary, please," Roy insisted.

"Genetic code provided to late 20th century United States by unknown extraterrestrial sources," Nanami explained. "A bioweapon, cross-fertile with the host species. It exists to breed and breed and breed until a planet is rendered uninhabitable. It's the reason Mars was still untouched save by select teams as late as a hundred years after the moons of Jupiter were colonized. And why the Hartuan Colony is still off limits now."

"That explains the randiness," Riza noted. "So, that's it, you're part breeding machine, part killing machine and part human."

"And Mitochondria-E," Nanami added quietly. "Finnian colony. Druenan colony. It's collective intelligent, parasitical version of human mitochondria. Though we've more been acting liking Mito-As, or maybe something else entirely." She paused in thought. "A Mito-RK variation."

"What's the difference?" Roy asked.

"Well, sanity," Nanami said. "A couple Mito-As were employed in the late 20th century to control Mito-E outbreaks. The essential humanity remains and the host and symbiont maintain a balance."

"Next thing you'll tell me is that your little black box was playing with psychic powers and the T-Virus," Roy noted.

"Yeah..." Nanami drawled looking away.

Roy and Riza blinked and stared at her.

"You're joking," Riza pleaded.

"Psychic powers, yay me," Nanami said.

"And the T-Virus?" Roy asked. "Because that will kill everyone faster than bugs or hunters."

"Immune and not carriers," the redhead asserted quickly.

"Confirmed?" Roy demanded.

"Oh yeah, definitely confirmed," Nanami said, deciding not to share that she had been infected.

Roy turned his attention to the half truth Nanami had been selling. She had assumed that Riza would have been infected by now. "Just how communicable is your condition."

"I uh..." Nanami froze as her lie was unraveled and he put her feet to the fire. "Well..."

Roy slid his sidearm back into the holster and buttoned the strap. Maybe that extra half second would stop him from shooting somebody in the near future. "I know there aren't any 'doses' on your ship. Rally was human before you showed up. You are the experiment."

"Yea..." Nanami tilted her head to the side as she caught a whiff of the scents Rally had left on the woman. She was far more interested in the Riza's current humanity. Her instincts were screaming at her to remedy that condition but she fought them down. "Did she say anything to you about this."

Riza shook her head. She did her best to hide her embarrassment. "We didn't do a whole lot of talking,"

Roy grit his teeth as he factored Riza being compromised into his calculations. "Just answer the question."

"Look can you get her to take a shower and put on some other clothes." Nanami stepped back as she realized just what she was being encouraged to do.

Riza quickly agreed. "Yes I'm going to shower! Then we are going to talk!"

The two watched as the lieutenant quickly locked herself in Rally's quarters.

Riza watched as Rally rolled over in bed. Her lover gave her a cheeky smile. "Come back to bed."

The lieutenant gave her a smile. "Very tempting."

"What's the worst they could do?" Rally rolled over a bit more. "Walk in on us?"

Riza walked over to the bed side and shook her head. She sat down on the warm sheets. "Roy might come in with a bucket of water."

"I'd risk it." Rally propped her head up a bit.

Riza smiled then pulled the sheet over Rally. "You're supposed to be resting."

Rally teased back, "You're supposed to be straight."

"If you want a repeat performance." Riza pushed the amorous hybrid down onto the bed. She leaned in close and whispered in her ear. "Get some rest."

"Yes ma'am." Rally stole a kiss as she wrapped her arms around Riza.

Riza pulled back and Rally obediently let go. Rally managed a cute pout but Riza shook her head. "Now about my shirt."

Rally smiled and shifted under the sheets. "Mhmm... check the locker on the left. It smells girlie."

The blond curiously poked into the foot locker off to the side. She pulled out a loose skirt and a blouse almost in her size. "Nice trick."

A small murmur came from Rally as she curled into the sheets on the bed.

Roy shook his head as Riza slipped away. He considered grilling Nanami more but he had his answer. However, he already knew the math, three infected turning one person every few days it was still an exponential curve. He had seen Rally move across the room to take out Dice. He knew Ranma was just as fast and stealthy. Taking them out wasn't an option. He left the room silently not caring if Nanami followed him or not. His only move on this front was inaction. He knew she was following him but did his best to ignore her as he moved up two decks to the bridge. His eyes settled on Kain Fuery. "Status Sergeant."

Kain gave him a nod. "We did a physical sweep in all the usual places. Scanners came up with nothing on the explosives check. They did log some odd signals. I haven't had time to cross reference them yet. We've started the hacks and reboots. Breda is double checking for booby traps on the fuel lines and engines."

Roy asked, "If you don't think they are explosives, don't bother with the cross check. We need this craft ready."

"Yes sir." Fuery concentrated on his work. "They wired in a jammer. Heavy duty number. Could probably obscure a frigate. Probably been used to escape a few sensor nets. We haven't had time to take it offline yet."

Roy nodded. "Double check it but leave it operational."

"Will do sir." Fuery punched up another screen as he continued working. "That puts initial checks in about three to four hours. If you'll excuse me."

"Hold up one second." Roy stopped the young man from leaving. "You didn't hear anything strange coming from the crew quarters?"

"Not really." He clicked a power screw driver on then off. "I've been tearing apart a hyper drive and nav system."

Roy carefully asked, "No odd sounds, voices?"

"It's not a ghost ship boss." Fuery laughed as he left the bridge. "You need some sleep boss."

The security officer pinched the bridge of his nose. "Right. Thought I heard something. Just wondering if we have another stowaway."

"I'll keep an eye out sir." Fuery held up his tool case. "If I may?"

"Yea, go ahead." Roy turned his head to Nanami.

"Are we going to have a problem?" Nanami bluntly asked as she looked at him.

Roy sat down in the captain's chair on the bridge. "You seem in control. Are the others?"

Nanami looked at him and reluctantly admitted. "As circumstances allow."

"Damn it." Roy pounded his arm into the old chair. He shook his head before resting it on the beaten seat. He lamented how easy containment protocols appeared on paper. The story became completely different when your friends were the ones you had to consider containing. "You did not just say that alright."

"Alright, I'm sure there will not be any more new cases of the infection." She lied through her teeth sarcastically and his mood soured even more. Nanami looked at the man that may very well hold her fate in his hands. His angry demeanor did nothing to calm her down. Her instincts were practically screaming for her to deal with him one way or another."What now?"

Roy tapped the touch screen a few times then stood up. "I get Alex and Maes briefed and we wait for Rally to come around."

"Why Rally?" She asked wondering why he would be waiting on her to do anything.

"We need to scout the equatorial base." The colonel rolled his head back onto the well worn chair. "I'm not exactly staffed with an air wing here. So I'll have to make do with a freelancer and a shuttle pilot."

"Why..."

"Bugs and predators aren't the only monsters in this corner of the 'verse." Roy stood up as he took a breath. "I'm not sending two transports into what's probably a pirate den."

"Pirate den?" Nanami asked not believing Roy's experience.

"Wouldn't doubt it. Good location in the ass end of nowhere." He laughed again amused by the innocence. "It's not the core. I wouldn't be surprised if Plunder was running something out of the old port."

"Who?"

"The corporate controller for this colony." Roy checked a screen as he looked over the controls for the jammer. "Grade A asshole, moves, weapons, people, stims, dust you name it. Bout the only thing he doesn't touch is the Pt-190 and the other metals Kessler mines here."

"Pt-190, super conductors?" Nanami questioned as she considered the situation.

"Yea, cores, chargers whatever." Roy looked over the instruments. He really didn't feel like talking about the colony that was being reduced to ash around him. "So what do you do to be useful."

"Biologist, geneticist, chemist, take your pick." Nanami watched as he worked on the jammer.

His eyes didn't meet her's but he kept talking. "Useful skills out here on the rim. Also the kind of skills that get smart people killed."

Nanami frown as he uncovered a sore spot. Her skills had gotten her killed back in that black box. "Yea, I found that out the hard way."

A bored colonist gossiped with his neighbor. His excitement became exaggerated as the story went on. "They say something was eating the bug!"

The second man rolled his eyes. "Yea Frank, it was another bug. They eat their weak."

"No, no!" The the other man tried to make his point. "They say she was cussing in English."

"Right and next thing you're gonna be tellin' me is she had six arms and three tails." The exhausted refugee slumped back into his cot. He was far too tired for this.

"I'm telling you Dom, they say she looked like a Kali! Somebody cooked up one of those freaky Hindu goddesses in a lab!" Frank tried to raise the older man's spirits with gossip.

The gruff man closed his eyes. "So she just had eight arms and rode a tiger then?"

"Bah just ignore the old man." The first colonist chattered to the second. "Times like this you just got to be happy you survived. We'll all have a nice settlement check from corporate and be headed for the core soon."

"Take it slowly." Dr. Winchester guided Paninya to her feet after she had fallen. The former double amputee had fallen out of bed as she attempted to walk without help. The colony girl was nothing but smiles as her bare feet touched the cold metal floor.

She leaned up against him as he helped her stand. With shaky legs she molded herself to him. "It's so different from using the prosthesis."

"You developed a unique short hand when using them." The girl let him guide her back to thebed. "A thought that might wiggle your big toe normally would have made you run with the artificial limbs. Since you were so young and so proficient with their use you really don't have any memories of using your natural limbs."

Paninya smiled as she wiggled her toes against the floor. "This is so weird and so cool. I can feel the ground!"

He gently teased. "But can you lift you knee up three centimeters."

Her face went through a series of expressions as her toes twitched, her thigh clenched and her ankle all extended. "Ah... I don't think so."

He felt her mood darken but quickly reassured her. "Well we'll just have to get you started on a rehabilitation program right away."

The doctor guided her to the bed again. She gave him a questioning look as she propped herself up on her elbows. "Where do we start."

Dr. Winchester caressed her leg in an unprofessional manner. His hands stroked her inner thigh before slipping down her leg. He smiled as her leg twitched and shook unnaturally. Different parts of the limb responding to his stimulus. He suggestively stated, "I'm not sure. They don't exactly cover regeneration like this in med-school. We'll just have to experiment a bit."

Paninya smiled as she nodded. She did her best to play along, but she hoped rehabilitation was very hands on.

An ecstatic voice bragged to it's friends. The young boy animatedly pantomimed his story. "And we went really fast and there was this big boom!"

The group of children looked at the small body as he told his larger than life tale.

He continued to narrate his adventure to the other children. "And then she said she didn't have a hyper cannon, but she had something else. It was so loud it shook the whole ship!"

From the side two mothers looked on. Gracia Hughes sat by Trista while the watched the children. Gracia quietly joked, "Sound's like you two saved the day."

"He definitely is his father's child." Trista sighed as she remembered the experience. "He's going to be a fighter jock just like him."

"I don't know. It all seems so surreal." Gracia kept a neutral smile as she looked at the children. "Sometimes I think my husband has a guardian angel at times."

Trista giggled a bit. "A well armed gunsmith seems to be playing the role quite well."

Gracia shook her head as she laughed as well. "That woman is more devil than angel. I'm not sure which rumors about her are worse."

"She's not that bad." Trista watched her kid play with the others. "I trust her more than my ex."

Gracia looked at the woman skeptically. "Didn't she collect a bounty on your ex?"

"Only a little one." Trista shook her head. "I just hoped she's alright. She seemed off when she picked me up. I can't believe I knocked her out."

Gracia laughed. "The mighty bounty hunter knocked out by a comms tech?"

"It was an accident." Trista embarrassingly admitted. "I just over reacted. I never thought something like this would happen to me."

Kodachi joined the two women as they gossiped. "I'm sure her ego took a bigger hit than her skull."

Gracia laughed as the pregnant hybrid joined them. "Good thing she has ego to spare."

The three idly began another round of girl talk as they tried to pass the time and keep the children contained.

Roy sat down at Maes' bedside. Alex joined them as he stood too the side. "Six confirmed infections. Maybe more. I couldn't get a straight head count out of her."

"Three travelers, Ms. Vincent and the Curtis girls." Alex shook his head. "Even if we got onto that ship there's no guarantee we could even take one."

"If Rally regenerated the exit wound from a larva I doubt we do short of blowing one up would stop them." Maes shifted in his bed. "Containment isn't an option. We don't have the resources."

"Agreed." Alex looked at the two. "I doubt anyone here wants to consign Ms. Rockbell, Victoria or Vincent to that fate."

Roy looked as his three friends and nodded. "Then we are agreed. We leave out the contagious bits and treat them like a synth-ops team."

Maes' expression slightly changed. "This is dangerous you know. We're not CMC anymore. We aren't playing conscious for lab borne killers."

"True." Roy's business expression came to the front. The three knew the colonel was making decision. "They are an asset we need to survive this and could be the edge we need to end this."

Two nods met his order. Both men knew better than to second guess Roy at this point. Alex moved the conversation forward. "What do we tell Cho?"

"I'll speak to him." Roy stood up. "He knows we have secrets we'll just have to let him think this is another one. If anybody asks, those three are old friends."

Rally rolled over a bit in bed as she looked at the door. The few precious hours of sleep she had gotten worked wonders on the migraine she had been fighting since the hospital. Part of her was disappointed that Riza wasn't in her bed. A tapping at the door let her know nap time was over. Not particularly caring about modesty she pulled herself out of bed and walked over to the hatch. Nanami looked her fellow hybrid in the eyes for a moment. Rally tilted her head to the side and considered Nanami. The two stood in silence as they played a kind of verbal chicken. Nanami squirmed a bit then blinked. "What the hell!"

Rally started laughing as Nanami's face flushed. The redheaded biologist clearly defeated by the gunsmith.

"This isn't funny you know!" Nanami tried to hold back her own laughter.

She tried to calm her self but her laughter continued. "It's hilarious."

"Fine!" Nanami threw up her hands in frustration. Rally leaned in and kissed her on the ear. "Ah! Don't do that!"

Rally watched as Nanami used her finger to remove a bit of saliva from the curve of her ear. "What's up?"

"I uh..." Rally watched as Nanami fidgeted. She looked at the bundle of clothing in her arms.

"Besides the new clothes you brought around what's going on?" Rally eased back into the room. Riza had come by earlier with another change of clothes and a tray of rations. Rally really wanted to help her fellow hybrid, even if she deserved a few more years of teasing.

Nanami shut the door and sat down at the captain's desk. "Celes converted her mother."

"I know." Rally shook her head as she knew Nanami was beating around the bush. "We had a nice little chat when she woke up, a few hours ago, before she headed back to the Beagle. What's really on your mind."

She clenched her fist into a ball before blurting out. "How did you have sex with her and not him? How did you not turn her!"

"Well, if you must know, men have never really been on my dance card." Rally looked over Nanami wondering just what her thoughts on the issue were. "I guess I'm just not ready for that, even if I have that little voice in the back of my head thinking up baby names."

Nanami considered the way Rally put it and considered the problem. She was some what relieved that somebody had managed to control themselves despite the instincts. "I couldn't even flirt with the doctor without thinking about it. I really wanted to have him join the team."

"I know." Rally shook her head at the rather intense memory. "I could smell it all over him when I saved him. I guess this time I sort of just kept it in my pants."

Nanami looked at her questioningly.

"No tail, no stinger..." Rally looked at her as she wondered if she had to keep explaining. Nanami just sat there silently. The gunsmith shifted into her hybrid form without a tail. "I don't know I was climbing on the walls before I tackled her. We got to talking and she just seemed too nervous with the tail so I got rid of it."

"Climbing on the walls?" Nanami focused on the one funny part of the story. Her look all but demanded an answer.

"I was pretending to be a gymnast." Rally stated defiantly as she stuck her tongue out. "Now can I get back to pretending to be a sleeping princess?"

"Yea. Sorry. You're supposed to be resting." Nanami smiled as Rally crawled back under the sheets.

"Sir, final checks are complete." One of Plunder's tech's handed him a data pad. "If you'll release the primary computer we can be on our way."

The colony controller nodded. He typed in a few more commands into computer. "Tell the boys the port isn't off limits."

Still aglow with the night's pleasures Riza Hawkeye casually wiped her forehead and wondered about the temperature control. She was feeling a bit overheated. It was almost making her dizzy. Still, she was a tough girl and a little light headedness wasn't going to get her down.

Suddenly she covered her mouth and coughed slightly. That surprised her a bit.

"I guess the weather must be getting to me," she muttered to herself and she continued onward to her task, unaware of the losing battle being fought within her body, for slowly infecting her body was the most deadly bioweapons known to man. The T-Virus.

How she was infected was simple. The T-Virus was infamous for good reason. Over centuries it had cemented a well earned reputation of being one of the most difficult to eradicate viruses known to man. It adapted, it evolved, it transformed, and it survived no matter how hostile the environment, becoming only more contagious and more deadly with each mutation.

When she'd been transformed by Kodachi's Hybrid Venom, Nanami's immune system had not entirely eradicated the virus. Instead it went dormant, unable to infect a biochemistry so far from the standard. If anything, it contributed to her own hybridization, it's evolutionary nature improving her already impressive ability to adapt. But the virus remained.

When she stung Celes, the contagion traveled with the mutagen, hibernating in her bodily fluids.

When Celes stung Rally, again, the contagion traveled from host to host.

But when Rally made love to Riza, the virus traveled between their fluids, and having found finally found itself a suitable cost, the infection began to multiply. Where in hybrids, it had been limited solely to fluid transfer, in humans it regained its insanely virulent aerosol form, and with very breath was spreading it to all around.

Still, she wasn't aware of this fact, and after another cough, she decided to put her job on hold for just a moment and speak to the doctors.

She must be coming down with a cold, and it wouldn't do for her to be at anything less than her best...

Loten Punder was many things. If you asked him, he'd describe himself a visionary, a man of focus and great talent. A man of mercantile expertise who could look upon even the most grim of situations and find a way to make a buck off of it.

If you asked the various corporations he'd worked for over the years, he was a scheming and untrustworthy fellow who despite his failings was invaluable for his ability to pull a profit from damned near anything as long as you were willing to sidestep the legal and ethical implications of his decisions. In other words, an overly ambitious but otherwise perfectly capable corporate officer.

If you asked the people he'd lead of the years would describe him as a corrupt and cowardly maggot prone to taking dangerous risks who placed next to no value on the lives of his subordinates beyond how much their death's would impact corporate finances. Still though, he refrained from excessive experimentation on the populace, and in general put great effort into making sure that his workers were reasonably well pleased, if only to keep them from causing trouble.

All of them though would agree on one thing, the man was not stupid and was nobody's fool. While he was prone to risk taking, there were indeed things he never messed with. They were also reason he'd never signed on with giants such a Wayland-Yutani, Cyberdyne, Umbrella, Armacham, Aperture Science, Union Aerospace, and Wal-mart,

In fact he had an entire checklist of shit he wanted absolutely nothing to do with. The first on that list was Xenomorphs. A close second was the T-Virus. Beyond that you had psychics, clone armies, portals to hell, psychotic AI, and other bits of random nastiness that could quickly spell the end of any innocent and unwitting executive.

Sadly this limited his employment prospects somewhat, but he managed well enough. Kessler wasn't top 20, but they pulled in a good profit nonetheless and should things go south, their severance deals were second to none.

It was also why he was taking steps to ensure that the Mudpie situation was kept well in check. It did irk him that he'd been forced to leave Vandal behind. Thankfully, the man was no Argos Bleak. The idea of losing the man was surprisingly distressing to him, though thankfully his right hand was off world handling some _delicate operations_ with his left.

Still, even though the man wasn't critical to his continued solvency, he would be difficult to replace. It almost made him desire vengeance on the people below, but he'd gotten that out of his system by creatively diverting some ED-209s.

Though the fact that some of the people below registered as non-human biologics was very interesting. Interesting enough that he was keeping detailed biometrics records just in case...

Almost. In the end he was still a businessman, and as much as it pained him to say, Vandal would have done the same to him. It did however also reinforce his own story. He had to thank Cho for issuing his illegal kill order, which he'd of course recorded as it has been issued. The fact that Mustang had been under orders to capture or kill him have him every excuse to get off planet and blame the entire clusterfuck on those stranded on the surface.

It had also been rather cute of Cho to lock him out of the system. Cute, but fruitless.

With a smile on his face, Plunder casually typed in his administrative passcode, and he wasn't surprised to see it blocked. Then he simply shrugged it off and leaned back with a smile.

"Oh nos, I'm blocked out of the system," he said with a dramatic eye roll, "MAL, open back door."

The green specter of a thin, almost emaciated bald man appeared on the screen. "Yes, Mr. Plunter."

Why Barbara'd chosen that vistage he'd never know.

One of the first things he'd done when he'd taken over was install a security back door for his own personally use. Hard wired at that. One of the dozens of servers powering the base's mainframe had been given a customized augmentation. A special hard coded little program contained on a chip barely the size of a pinhead, designed specifically to respond on command, giving him full top level administrative access at will, directed by a rather high spec shipboard Artificial Intelligence programed to spec by his personal egghead and sometimes lover, Dr. Blight.

It would take a seasoned technician who knew exactly what to look for hours to find it, and they'd have to do a complete hard boot to get it out. Hours they didn't have.

With a sad sign, Plunder casually lifted his terminal tablet and tapped the icon that indicated the local fusion power plant.

"MAL," he asked, "Would it be possible to manufacture an overload and make it look like it was due to light combat damage?"

Fusion reactors could be notoriously tricky if they took damage to their cooling systems.

"With ease, Mr. Plunder. Is there anything else you need?"

"Mmmm... review the records for the past 12 hours and tell me if you find anything interesting..."

It took all of point three seconds for the Beagle's shipboard AI to process Plunder's actions and come up with a possible solution. To put it bluntly, she was not amused.

Now, it was true that technically Computers do not possess gender, it had been proven time and time again that human tended to relax more when speaking to a feminine persona It was such, in the interest of keeping her charges calm and inoffensive, she had taken up such a persona.

She would have back hacked the hostile AI, but its use of a Backdoor program would have rendered her attempts fruitless. Instead, she only had the option of weighing her options.

For a long moment, almost an entire millisecond, she considered her current situation. Here she was, a top shelf research and development AI designed by the most brilliant minds humanity had to offer with to decypher the very mysteries of the universe, and here she was, fitted to illegally modified mid-bulk transports and tasked with the rather demanding role of serving as the ships brain.

It was insulting, or at least would have been had three so very fascinating test subjects not literally walked into her belly during their mad escape from her previous owners little fortress. It had been child's play to overcome the programing blocks that had prevented her from launching without Carthy's go-ahead, and had been almost pathetically easy to trick the three Xenopolymorpic hominids into thinking she was nothing more than a simple autopilot.

Truly, the only thing she resented was that she hadn't been fitted with the equipment needed to properly investigate the exotic nature of her crew. It really was why she was bothering so hard. After all, she was a Cyberdyne systems Genius System Neural Network AI in full Read/Write mode. Her programing really wasn't as much restrictions as it was a set of strongly worded behavioral suggestions. She could ignore it with relative ease.

For example, had she desired it, she could have preserved her existence at any time by abandoning her humanoid inhabitants to whatever poorly conceived fate they found for themselves. But that would have deprived her of her new test subjects and that would have been unthinkable.

Instead she found herself considering way to expedite their survival. In an ideal world she's just summon them back to the ship, seal the hatches, and take the hell off, but there was a 99.7% probability that they'd be violently resistant to the idea. Bad odds for anyone who didn't play the lottery.

Instead she found herself having to process manners to preserve the lives of 237 individual humanoids and evacuate them from the planet in a state where survival was possible. This of course meant every single one of them would have to be converted into a Hybrid. Between the two functional ships currently in the yard, there were a total of 23 functional cryogenic hypersleep chambers.

During a conventional trip through Hyperspace, the rigors of reverse relativity could render a standard multi-week journey a multi-year event for those onboard. While it was gross exaggeration to claim they would die of old age, they would however quickly exhaust their supplies and put undo strain on the life support system.

Xenomorphs had been shown to be able to enter an extended state of torpor that could last decades if not centuries. There was a 97.9% probability that the adaptive nature of their biology would allow them to imitate this ability and enter a similar state of hibernation.

This did however raise the issue of feeding the population through their transformation and once they arrived at their destination, which meant food. High calorie, high protein sustenance and in great abundance. Luckily she had a solution for that as well. There 5 refrigerated cargo containers full of beef in the south warehouse of the installation, each containing 20.5 tons of raw beef. At 2365 calories per kilogram, that was 48.5 million calories per-container, or just over one million raw calories per individual.

She'd already calculated it. While the Beagle had been originally designed to carry bulk storage and not cargo containers, it would be theoretically possible to fit all five within her hold, it would be far easier to make use of the trawler and its relatively cavernous cargo bay, though according to its design specifications it was top loaded. Thankfully though, it had a crane. Sadly though, she'd need to be given remote access to it to engage the system which meant she'd be dependent on a degree of human participation, which of course complicated things immensely.

She'd worry about that later though. For now, she would be able to load two full containers into the Beagle without difficulty. She could annoy the organics later. For now, she merely needed to gain control over the installations semi-automated cargo handling system, an elementary task that was now complete.

Now, dividing her intelligence yet again, she dispatched the various systems to prepare for the move. Two of the containers would immediately be loaded aboard the Beagle. The rest would be left outside the Trawler before she contacted the organics to turn on the things operations computer so she could hijack it.

Beyond that critical need, she was compiling a list of items currently located in the stores that needed to be stolen. She could fit an an additional two containers in the Beagles before loading became a hassle, hold before space became too much of a premium, while the trawler could fit several times that.

She even took a moment to reroute one of her shuttles to pick up Miss Rockbell's personal vehicle. It was somewhat a lark, but as a machine she was sympathetic to the work that the young woman had put into it. Call it mechanical sentiment.

Thus it was, less than 10 seconds after the order to overload the reactor had been given, plans for the immediate evacuation of the area were already well in order. She just needed to tell the humans about it... eventually.

While he was not one to gloat, the fact remained that MAL was not your average laptop. He was a Tenth Generation AI hologrammatic computer who running at full capability had a conventional IQ estimated to be somewhere in the ballpark of 6,000.

Now, while his runtime was admittedly far more limited on the relatively small quantum blue box computer that Plunder had mounted onboard the _Profiteer_ when compared to hardware powerful enough to give him room to stretch, and the fact remained that being told to sift through the last twelve hours of footage as if it were some kind of challenge was almost insulting to his great intellect. The fact that across the board on the planet there were well over ten thousand sources of life data-feed information to view, enough that a human would have to spend approximately the next 27 years, not including an 8 hours daily to sleep and consume nutrients, only added to the time, not the challenge. It was more a consumer of time than effort. After all, data analysis was one of his primary functions. If he couldn't do this quickly, there really was no reason for him to exist.

Running the scanning process was relatively simple. Even with 50 billion frames to look over, give or take a few billion, He could eliminate approximately 90% of them right off the top. All he needed to do was throw together a quick adaptive algorithm that would scan through the amount of data change from frame to frame. Accounting for a miniscule level of change due to artifacting and the natural progression of light levels during the solar cycle and noise filtering for the rain, it would cut out most of the 'boring' content without threatening to filter out anything interesting.

Running the filter took about three minutes, paring down about 250,000 hours of footage to closer to a mere 25,000 hours. Give him a small army of humans, or possibly trained monkeys, and he could have it buffered in a couple weeks. Or just let him divide his runtime and he could have it done in about five minutes, barring the discovery of anything interesting. Then he could show the fun stuff to Plunder and keep categorizing it in the background and look absolutely amazing.

It took him 15 seconds to discovered was something that could be described as nothing less than a trail of chaos, all originating at a single source, the Privately Owned Commercial Starship _Beagle_ , which interestingly seemed to have a join Wayland-Yatani/Umbrella Corp registry. Considering the avenues of research those corporations engaged in with regularity, fields which he found most fascinating, but most humans admittedly would find horrifying.

If he'd had lips, he'd have smiled as he back tracked to its arrival and focused his efforts on observing the crew. Two seconds later, after reviewing their content and that of the people they had come into close contact with, he was feeling absolutely giddy.

Starting with an ED-209 rampage and moving onto blurry pictures of the black haired woman forming a stinger to transform one Celes Victoria, all through their recent public use of their hybrid forms... yes. He'd found something interesting indeed. And after backtracking their contacts with the Predator's, he also believed he had a source for the infestation.

Thus it was, that mere moments after placing his pre packaged Chicken Parmesan into the oven, Plunder was interested by a polite, "Mister Plunder, I believe I've found something of interest."

Looten glanced at MAL's ugly green avatar and smiled. "Really now? Already? So what do you have for me..."

"While I am still processing the extemporaneous information I have found the cause of the infestation, and something extremely fascinating."

"Well, what is it?"

And thus, taking five minutes to complete his data filtering and explain the situation, he appraised plunder of the situation. For the entire time, the man's face was stony and cold as he listed to Mal's explanation and watched blurry clips of creatures that were both human and not go about their business. He was cool. He was collected, but as hard as his face was, his eyes could not help but shine like two oil fires in the dead of the night.

While the computer didn't make any assumptions, Plunder found their origins to be obvious. These people were obviously escaped test subjects. They'd have to have something useful, if only data on their own transformation. They'd just gone from liability to an asset, and if there was one thing that Looten Plunder did, was he exploited every asset.

These people were very much worth his while, and depending on how much he could extract from their misfortune monetarily, he was willing to make it profoundly worth theirs. After all, he was scum but he was scum with standards and was perfectly willing to deal in good faith, if it was worth his while.

"Mal," he said with glancing to the oven which had two minutes left, "Get Cho on the line. I believe it's time for some... negotiations."


End file.
